COAL 

GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 



COAL 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP or CONTROL 

Government Ownership of Navy Coal Land 
and Control of the Coal Industry 



By 
D. J. McADAM, M. A., LL. D. 

Professor of Engineering in Washington and Jefferson College 

President of the Moorefield Coal Company 

etc. 




NEW YORK 

AUTHORS & PUBLISHERS CORPORATION 

4th Avenue and 30th Street 

M c M X X I 



c,^^^ 



^^'r^-b 



Copyright, 1921, by the 
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS CORPORATION 






DEC 30 1921 
g)ClA6533l8 



/^ I 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

Preface 7 

I Importance of Fuel 9 

II Coal, the Present Fuel of the World .... 13 

III Strike of the Mines 19 

IV Coal Resources of the United States, Estimated 

BY THE Geological Survey 28 

V What Causes Are at Work to Promote Coal Con- 
servation ^ . 35 

VI Government Coal Land Held for Its Exclusive Use 

— "Navy" Coal Land — Battleship Coal Land . . 40 

VII Navy Coal in Alaska 57 

VIII Government Owned Land Leased' for Commercial 

Purposes 62 

" IX Coal Land in the Hands of Private Owners . . 66 

X To What Department Does Mining Belong? . . yy 

XI How the Bureau of Mining Will Control the 

Mining Industry . 82 

XII . Methods of Enforcing These Controls .... 104 

XIII Labor and Wages 110 

XIV Is the Right to Strike "Inviolable"? Does Might 
Make Right? 121 

XV Industrial Democracy in the Mining Industry . 128 

XVI The Anthracite Field in Pennsylvania .... 141 

XVII Proper Use of Coal After it is Mined . . . . 159 

XVIII Auxiliaries to Our Coal Supply 176 

XIX "White Coal" 183 



PREFACE 

Coal is a public utility. This is the viewpoint from 
which this book is written. To the minds of those who 
use the term generally, "Coal is a public utility" means 
simply that coal is something that is useful to the public. 
It means that, of course, but it means much more : it means 
that coal belongs to the people. On it depend -the com- 
fort, even the life, of the people and the commercial su- 
premacy and industrial life of the nation. To waste coal 
is a sin agains the whole people. Those who have bought 
the coal land are entitled to all the rights that go with a 
public utility. Their ownership is in the nature of a per- 
petual lease. They hold it in trust for the public use. 

The lease of a coal mine always contains a provision 
thaf mining must be carried on without waste, and that 
the mine may be inspected at any time when such inspec- 
tion does not interfere with the work of the mine. These 
provisions help the operator and safeguard the owner. 

Control such as that is, in effect, the kind we have ad- 
vocated for the entire coal industry. Operators who do 
not need control, — as many of them do not, — will not be 
affected and need not complain. Those who do need it 
must have it. The public good is paramount 

For a large part of the coal land, private ownership is 
the best plan. The stimulus of ownership, the appeal to 
efficiency, and the urge to new inventories are good for any 
business. For one part of the coal field, however, govern- 
ment ownership is imperative. 

A Battleship Without Fuel! Would that that cry might 
reach the ear of everyone who is responsible for our future 
efficiency on the sea! If we are to have a navy in half 



8 

a century from now, we must act quickly if we are to 
have a proper navy fuel. The battleship Tennessee is to 
make a speed of 38 knots an hour. The best Bering River 
coal could, with the greatest difficulty, drive a ship 18 knots 
an hour. The best navy coal is the Pocahontas coal. As 
I write, an agreement made by a company to buy 24,0(X) 
acres of Pocahontas coal land in the heart of the field lies 
before me, along with an advertisement of a tract of 2,400 
acres. "Our 'Navy' coal will soon be a memory." 

The Author. 



COAL 

CHAPTER I 

IMPORTANCE OF FUEL 

Wood: Nearly Negligible as Fuel — Destroyed in Clearing 
Forests — Built into Houses and Wasted. 

Natural Gas : Waste in Production and Use— Supply De- 
clining. 

Oil: Wastefully Produced— 'Nearly Exhausted in the East- 
ern Industrial Fields. 

Wood, Gas, and Oil Fuels 

When the Roman mythology made Vulcan the god of 
fire., iit also made him god of all handicraftsmen. ''He 
was the divine artist, the creator of all that was beautiful 
as well as of all that was mechanically wonderful in the 
abodes, of the gods.'' The spark that he got from heaven 
kindled the fires that warmed civilization into life on earth. 
When man began to be a fire-making and fire-using animal, 
he began to draw away from the other animals. Every 
new advance in civilization has been concurrent with new 
sources and new uses of heat. Fuel, then, has been a mat- 
ter of large concern to mankind. Nature has been very 
kind to a large part of the earth. Fuel sprang unbidden 
from the ground in its trees and grass. 

Wood As Fuel 

In the largest part of the United States, the pioneers 
found the hills and valleys covered with timber, — a fuel 
ready at hand, simply beckoning to the axman to come 
and get it. It was his building material as well as his fuel. 
From it came the logs for the walls of his cabin; from it 
he hewed the puncheons for his floor; from^ it he split and 
shaved the shingles for his roof. He did not grudge the 
fuel that he put in his house, for it was so abundant as 
to be a nuisance. He did not spare it. He rolled in the 
back-log and fore-log, and split the kindling for the roar- 



10 COAL 

ing fire over which the busy housewife swung her crane 
burdened with its load of pots and kettles. On the wintry 
evening 

They gathered round the fire, 
And piled the wood on higher, 
As the song and jest went round. 

All these uses made small inroads into the fuel that 
must be sacrificed. The timber that could not be used was 
an encumbrance. It must be cleared away to make room 
for the potato patch, the ever-widening corn field, and the 
wheat, oats, and rye fields. It must be felled and grubbed 
and destroyed. The logs must be heaped together and 
burned. So, this is the day for the log-rolling. Came the 
neighbors with their oxen and log-sleds, and with freshly 
ground axes. Huge trees were felled, and the logs, which 
would be the wonder of our lumbermen, were rolled to- 
gether and burned. So they went from cabin to cabin, — 
neighbor helping neighbor for help in return, — in this de- 
plorable, but necessary, destruction of fuel. 

To-day our hills and valleys are almost denuded of their 
trees. These trees are built into our houses, turned into 
paper, burned in our forest fires, or wasted, or destroyed. 
Comparatively little systematic effort has been made to 
reforest, and not enough to prevent and control forest fires. 
The price of building materials has advanced manyfold; 
wood as fuel is scarcely considered in a large part of the 
country. 

Natural Gas As a Fuel 

Where it is found in any special region, natural gas is 
the ideal fuel. It has- from one-and-a-half to ten times 
as great heat value as gas that is artificially produced. It, 
too, is following rapidly in the wake of our wasted forests. 
Our waste of it has been criminal. No part of thi^ crime 
of waste can be condoned as was the destruction of tim- 
ber when it gave way to the plow. Some of the waste 
resulted from ignorance of a way to control the gas flow, 
and from a lack of pipes to carry it away. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 11 



Gas was first struck in wells which were drilled for oil. 
When gas was struck the discoverers did not know what 
to do with it, or how to control it. One of the largest gas 
wells in Pennsylvania, — the McGuggin well in Washington 
County, — was set on fire, and for months was simply a 
great geyser of flame, the roaring of which could be heard 
for miles — the Mecca to which night picnic parties made 
pilgrimages, to see the eighth wonder of the world. 

When gas wells were drilled near a town and the fluid 
brought under control and piped along the streets, the open 
street lights were great torches that fouled the air and 
wasted the gas. When used in grates and furnaces, it 
was used without thought of economy. As there were no 
meters, the family burning the most gas was just that 
much ahead. The amount annually wasted may be rightly 
reckoned as a billion dollars worth. 

Now the first gas wells are exhausted. The region of 
production is being pushed to the South and Southwest; 
the day of limited supply has come ; the day of exhaustion 
has come in some sections and is approaching in nearly 
all, and the pipe lines now carrying natural gas must carry 
artificial gas, or be useless. 

Oil As Fuel 

Oil, when properly burned in a furnace properly con- 
structed, is a good fuel. More's the pity that it had not 
been less wastefuUy used and more prudently produced in 
the parts of the United States in which industrial fuel is 
in greatesit demand. When wells were sunk in Western 
Pennsylvania, which produced five thousand barrels a day 
of the best oil on the market, there was a mad rush to 
drill and get out all the oil at once. As many as thirty 
wells half-a-mile deep were drilled on a hundred-acre farm. 
The market was flooded with oil. The demand then was 
not nearly so great as it is now. The best Pennsylvania 
oil was sold for fifty cents a barrel, or less. Oil was so 
cheap that there was little incentive for carefulness in its 



12 COAL 



use. Oil-saving was more expensive than oil-buying if it 
involved expensive change in methods of use. 

Soon the great oil fields were depleted. Now the fields 
that were once the scene of feverish activity are almost 
deserted. If a new well is put down that produces a few 
barrels a day, the owner is satisfied; if it is a dry hole, 
he is not much surprised. To sink a well in a nearly ex- 
hausted field is, anyway, a gamble. Fortunately, new fields 
have lately been found, and new sources of outside sup- 
ply have given a new lease of life to oil as a fuel supply 
in some parts of our country, but not in the center of the 
great industrial regions, which at present most need the 
fuel. 

The new oil supply will be treated in connection with 
coal auxiliaries. 



CHAPTER II 

COAL, THE PRESENT FUEL OF THE WORLD 

Coal in Time of War: What It Did for Germany— What It 
Did for the Allies. 

Coal in Time of Peace : Importance to England for Her 
Industries and Export Trade — Importance of England's Coal 
Export to France, Italy, and South America — ^Value of English 
Coal to United States When a Strike Limits Supply. 

The realization of the all importance of the coal re- 
sources of the United States has come to us very slowly. 
In fact, the knowledge that we had any to speak of is 
scarcely a century old. When King Charles II gave Will- 
iam Penn a *'deed" to what is now Pennsylvania, he tried 
to reserve to the Crown a share of the valuable minerals 
in the ground. He reserved one-fifth of all the gold and 
silver. He didn't think the coal then as valuable as the 
two bear-skins that Penn was to give every year. In the 
patents to the land in Pennsylvania given by the Common- 
wealth in 1780 and 1790, reservation is made of one-fifth 
of the gold and silver, the grantors being all unconscious 
that the land was underlaid v>^ith a metal of great value 
to the State, and not underlaid with silver and gold. 

A century ago, — in 1820, — but three hundred and sixty- 
five tons of anthracite coal were shipped in a year from 
mines in Pennsylvania, and in 1840 only four hundred and 
sixty-five thousand tons of bituminous coal. As long as 
wood in abundance was available for fuel, as long as the 
rude water-wheel ground out the grain, as long as trains 
of pack horses carried over the mountains what the set- 
tlers produced and brought back what they needed in ex- 
change, they had little need of any other fuel The canoe 
and raft on their streams, and their wind-driven sail- 
vessels sufficed for their commerce. Now the varied in- 
dustries, the railroads, the steam-driven boats and ships 

13 



14 COAL 



and the miillions of homes have increased the demands of 
the people, until anthracite production is nearly a hundred 
million tons a year and bituminous more than half a billion. 
The National and State governments have in general 
taken little interest in coal. They parted title to almost all 
the best coal in the United States along with title to the 
surface, never even raising the question as to whether it 
was the best thing to do. Now, when they do awake to 
the inquiry, they find it, if not too late to remedy any part 
of the mistake, at least presenting a very serious situation. 

Coal in War Time 

Never had the all importance of coal been so impressed 
upon every nation in the world as during the great World 
War. 

Germany's Great Coal Fields Fought Her Battles for Her 

For years, Germany's great factories built about her 
coal fields had wrought with fiendish skill and ingenuity her 
engines of destruction in preparation for the slaughter she 
planned. For years her chemists extracted from her coal 
the explosives that shattered the shells and produced the 
gases that dealt death to her enemies. Cut oflf by blockade, 
had disaster come to her coal mines, every munition fac- 
tory would have been closed, transportation of troops and 
supplies paralyzed. The struggle would have been over. 
Her coal kept Holland neutral, — indeed friendly, — since 
Germany furnished Holland coal in exchange for food, — 
and later tthe Kaiser. 

An important part in her efficiency in equipment came 
from the byproduct ovens of Belgium and Northern France, 
just as the loss of the mines was an almost irreparable 
disaster to France. 

Not only did Germany's coal fight her battles on land, 
but her captured coal did what fighting on sea her pirate 
cruisers wer0 able to do. The depredations made by such 
German cruisers as the Emden, Dresden and Kronprins 
Wilhelm-, were made possible by their ability to take coal 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 15 



from their captured ships at sea. Just as the submarine 
that did such deadly work for the Germans was an Ameri- 
can invention, so the device that enabled their cruisers to 
coal from their captives was an American suggestion. 

William H. Bechler, an officer in the United States 
Navy, was^ a naval attache at Berlin. He read a paper in 
1902 describing his marine cableway, which coaled the bat- 
tleship Massachusetts from a collier at sea. German papers 
commented at large on the paper and appealed to German 
engineers to solve the problem. They did solve it, and 
their cruisers carried apparatus by which they could take 
coal from another vessel at sea, both driving ahead at the 
rate of ten knots an hour. 

We had solved the problem, and our colliers on the sea 
were equivalent to the addition of many destroyers to our 
fleet. Without being able to coal at sea, each destroyer 
would have been obliged to return to a coaling station every 
few days; and while going and coming would have been 
of no use to the navy, but exposed especially to attack by 
submarines, which made it a point to lie in wait to destroy 
ships on the routes to coaling ports. 

Coal and the Allies 

Coal was just as essential, of course, to all the other 
nations engaged in the war. 

One of the greatest disasters to the Russian army was 
caused by failure of coal supply for their engines on the 
trains that were to bring re-enforcements and munitions. 

England was hard put to it to furnish the coal that 
she must supply, if the Allies were to win the war. Her 
ships needed more coal than ever. Her factories were 
supplying not only her own home needs and the needs of 
her own armies, but were making guns and ammunitions 
for her allies. France had lost her northern coal fields 
with their normal output of 20,000,000 tons a year, together 
wiith factories in the regions held by the Germans. Eng- 
land, in time of peace, sent 20,000,000 tons to France ; now 
France needed not only her normal importation, but the 



16 COAL 

increased demand for her miunitions plants and other fac- 
tories, and also to make up the twenty millions that the 
German army held. 

Italy, practically dependent upon outside coal, almost 
lost the war when her munition and coal supply failed. 
The cry, "Men and guns and ships will win the war !'' was 
almost superseded by the cry, ''Coal will win the war!" 

Then in England came the refusal to call miners to 
the colors. Soldiers were even withdrawn from the army 
to work in the mines, — a work as important for winning 
the war as fighting in France. The Home Secretary an- 
nounced : 

"It has been decided, in view of the importance of the 
national interest of maintaining the output of coal, that no 
person employed underground in a coal mine and no person 
employed on the surface as winding engineer, pumper, 
weighman, electrician, or mechanic is to be called upon for 
service in the field without consent of the Home Office." 

In the United States operators and miiners vied with one 
another in their effort to furnish coal for battleships, for 
transports, for soldiers in camps, for soldiers overseas, and 
for our allies. Everywhere the eye met the placard : "Coal 
will win the war!" 

Coal in Time of Peace — Coal Mining in England 

When the Great War was over and England's soldiers 
were on their home land again, there seemed to be a feel- 
ing that coal was a kind of wartime necessity, and that 
now that peace was come, strenuous production was not 
needed. Miners did not work vigorously and efficiently, 
and production fell off greatly. At length, the miners 
struck for higher wages and shorter hours, which meant 
less production and higher prices. The people of England 
were panic-stricken. Coal for their factories and for ex- 
port lies at the foundation of their ability to pay their 
enormous war debt, and hold their place in the world's 
business. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 17 



An influential English paper, with almost a wail of 
despair, exclaimed : "We must have coal, and cheap coal, 
or perish industrially." 

Coal Mining in the United States 
When the armistice was signed, and our soldiers were 
brought back to the United States, we ceased to talk or 
think of coal, except as we classed it among the things 
we had to buy at a higher price than before the war. Coal 
is among the things we have, of course, and having these 
things, of course, we cease to think whether they are im- 
portant or not. 

It needed a new shock to stir all the people to realize 
that, as at present organized, we cannot live without coal. 
The shock came in the resolution adopted by the United 
Miners' Union that if the demands made by the workers 
were not conceded they would strike on a fixed day, — that 
nearly half a million men would cease to produce coal' just 
at the beginning of winter. Then all the people knew 
that coal is not alone to win wars, but is essential in time 
of peace ; that without it our factories will stop, millions 
of people will be out of employment and without the means 
of livelihood; most of our railroads will not be operated, 
and many of the people will suffer or die with cold.i 

The President called it an '^impending disaster/' saying 
further : 

When a movement reaches a point where it appears to in- 
volve practically the entire productive capacity of the country 
with respect to one of the most vital necessities of daily domes- 
tic and industrial life, and w^hen the movement is asserted in 
a time and manner calculated to involve the maximum of dan- 
ger to the public w^elfare, in this critical hour of our country's 
life, the public interest becomes the paramount consideration. 
The matters v^ith v^hich we now deal touch not only the wel- 
fare of a class, but vitally concern the well being, the comfort, 
the very life of all the people. I feel it my duty to declare 
that any attempt to carry out the purpose of this strike, and 



18 COAL 



thus to paralyze the industries of the country, with the con- 
sequent suffering and distress of all our people, must be con- 
sidered a grave moral and legal wrong against the government 
and people of the United States. I can do nothing else than 
to say that the law will be enforced and the means will be 
found to protect the interests of the nation in any emergency 
that may arise out of this unhappy business. 



CHAPTER III 

STRIKE OF THE MINES 

Strike of the Mines : When They Have No More Coal — 
We Have Wasted Our Coal in Production and in Use — Causes 
of Waste — Cheap Coal Land — Fierce Competition Due to Over- 
production — Financial Weakness of Coal Companies — Apathy 
of the Public — Misleading Statement of Our "Inexhaustible" 
Supply. George Otis Smith's Pessimistic Speech. 

If the temporary reduction in the output of coal in the 
United States is a disaster, what will it be when the pro- 
duction shall entirely and permanently cease ? 

During the strike in 1919, non-union and various union 
m.ines worked, so that the output was maintained at from 
forty to fifty per cent of normal. If a falling off of fifty 
to sixty per cent of normal production is a calamity, what 
of it when one hundred per cent of production shall cease? 

No strike will continue for long to cut off the entire 
coal supply. The people will not stand for it long. The 
entire people would not stand calmly by idle mines and 
freeze. Their helplessness and weakness in face of a strike 
seem to indicate that they would, but patience would reach 
», iimit. 

However, there is coming a worse disaster than a min- 
ers' strike. It is a strike by the mines when they have no 
coal to give. 

The American people have been spoiled by the abund- 
ance of our natural resources. We think as little of their 
exhaustion as of the exhaustion of the air. But it is time 
for legislators, statesmen, and thoughtful people to take 
stock of such a vital necessity as coal. It is tim.e to ask 
such a serious question as : *'What will be the status of 
the nation when all the coal in what is now the thickly 
settled regions of the country, — and what is now the in- 
dustrial field, — is exhausted? How will it aflfect the whole 

19 



20 COAL 



people and the nation when the time comes, as it will in 
a comparatively short time in the life of a nation, when 
all the best coal in the United States, — in Pennsylvania, 
West Virginia, Ohio, and other Eastern States, — is gone, or 
where so little remains that its production is negligible?" 

Of course, we languidly agree that coal is not like most 
of our other resources, that once exhausted there can be 
no, renewing. Much of our land whose fertility has been 
exhausted by unscientific farming, even whose surface has 
been seamed by the floods caused by reckless destruction 
of the timber on the hillsides, may be made fertile again 
by irrigation and fertilizing, or be re-forested. The farm- 
er's flocks are followed by other flocks. Every year a new 
flock of 'lambkins skip upon the hillside''; every year a 
new ''iownng herd winds slowly o'er the lea," but the coal 
used or w^asted is never renewed. 

Yet this essential and unrenewable resource is being 
used and recovered wastefully. Our waste of coal has 
been reckless and indefensible. Billions of tons have been 
practically destroyed by our methods of mining, and other 
billions wasted in our unwise use of it after it is mined. 
Some of the reasons for such waste may be stated as fol- 
lows : 

First, The Low Selling Price of Coal Land 

In the early developm.ent of coal mining, in parts of 
the anthracite region of Pennsylvania, coal land containing 
m.any beds of the finest coal in the world was sold at four 
cents an acre, or leased at a rental of an ear of corn a 
year. In the great bituminous fields any price received vv^as 
so much money found by the owners. - 

Even now, in some parts of the country, coal land is 
sold at a price which, if it does not provoke waste, does 
not discourage it. If it becomes expensive to mine the 
acres of coal that lie on the outskirts of the holdings, the 
mine is abandoned and a new m.ine opened. If, to support 
the roof so that pillars of coal can be recovered, it costs 
too much to give the operator enough profit^ the pillars 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 21 



are left undrawn and lost forever. If the roof is not 
good, and expensive to prop, a foot or two may be left 
at the top to support the roof. It is better to lose the 
coal than to buy and place the props. Coal is left at the 
bottom for a reason of expensive coal. A few tons lost 
counts little on the operator's ledger, if it only costs him 
in the land a very small fraction of a cent a ton. 

Second. Unrestricted Production and Consequent 
Fierce Competition for a Market 

The coal mines already opened in the United States 
have an annual capacity of more than 750,000,000 tons. 
In 1918 they actually produced 585,883,000 tons, working 
only two hundred and twenty-five days, much of the time 
lost being by lack of cars or lack of men. The normal 
demand is now, in normal times, not much above half a 
billion tons. Ever since the anthracite strike in 1902, v/hen 
production in the bituminous fields was much stimulated 
and many new mines opened, capacity of production has 
been greater than demand. The natural result has been 
fierce competition for sales. The operator was at the 
mercy of the buyer. 

The price of coal was so low most of the time that it 
was not possible to mine any but easy coal and make a 
profit, and not possible to pay a decent wage to labor. 

The average selling price of coal in the United States 
for the years 1890 to 1900, inclusive, was $1.06 a ton, with 
the highest value $1.16 and the lowest 95 cents. 

The average number of days worked was 199, ran^in^ 
from 214 to 178. 

The average selling price of coal in the next decade, 
1901 to 1910, was $1.10, and that included the year of 
the great anthracite strike, when bituminous coal was high- 
est. In 1909 in six States the amount received for the 
coal sold was less than it cost to produce it. The owners 
got nothing on the average for interest depletion, deprecia- 
tion, or salary expenses. In 1914 Illinois and Indiana 
operators, in an agreed statement, appealed to the President 



22 COAL 



for permission to initiate a solution for prevailing condi- 
tions — this to be subject to review by the government. 
The following are a few excerpts from their appeal: 

The normal state of this industry for years has been such 
as to waste the coal reserve whkh now insures the safety of 
the eastern part of the country, and deprives the operators of 
any hope of profit. . . . The coal sells in eighteen states. 
The business is therefore interstate. The operators are amjen- 
able to the anti-trust laws, which they believe forbid any 
co-operation among them. Because they cannot co-operate 
they cannot simplify their selling methods or reduce their 
selling and operating costs. 

The mines are within these two states and the states regu- 
late their operating methods. The effect of the nation's anti- 
trust laws is to cause them to compete without restraint. This 
has produced a decreasing selling price. The states' laws have 
caused a rising production cost. The rising cost of production 
and the falling selling price have long since madre profit im- 
possible and now threatens the safety of the whole business 
structure, as well as of the miners and the public. [The requi- 
site investment in plant and equipment has increased one 
thousand per cent in twenty years.] Enforced competition has 
opened three mines where two were needed, and employed 
three men where two were needed. These mines and men 
can find work but one hundred and seventy-five days out of 
three hundred; hence higher wages have to be paid than the 
production warrants. Their labor cost is 93 cents per ton, 
selling price $1.14 in Illinois and $1.11 a ton in Indiana. Out 
of this margin must come salaries, selling costs, land deple- 
tion, depreciation, repairs, cost of materials used in the mines 
and eight or ten other major expenses. This leaves no possible 
net profit. One obligation resting on the operators is to re- 
cover the pillar and top coal. It costs too much ; it cannot be 
done. For every two acres they exhaust they leave one in 
the ground unrecoverable. In Illinois every year twelve thou- 
sand acres are exhausted instead of eight thousand; in Indiana 
three thousand instead of two thousand. In the nation one 
hundred thousand acres instead of sixty-five thousand are 
exhausted. 

Third. The Financial Weakness of Many Operating 
Companies 

To make a mining operation successful, to secure a 
low cost operation, the mine must be well equipped. This 
requires a large outlay of money. Shafts and manway 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 23 



must be sunk and, probably, concreted. Expensive tipple, 
grading, siding, expensive engines, boilers, pumps, fans, 
etc., must be provided. It will not pay, in general, to incur 
these expenses unless a large acreage is bought and a long 
life for the mine is assured. Too often a large part of the 
money is obtained by mortgage or bonds. Unseasoned 
bonds are not much sought after by investors, and the 
bonds bearing a high interest rate have to be sold at a 
discount. At the outset the company is burdened with 
large fixed charges. In addition, the equipment expense 
not covered by the money raised from bonds, and the 
furnishing of working capital must be provided for by 
issuing stock, — often too much stock for the real equity 
in the property. A considerable time is consumed in get- 
ting ready to operate commercially. It takes time to sink 
shaft and erect tipple and install machinery. After the 
coal is reached by the shaft, entries and airway have to 
be driven and rooms turned before even a fair start has 
been made in production. The output is small for a long 
time, and costly to produce. In the meantimte, interest 
goes on. Soon stockholders clamor for dividends. If the 
mine is operated by the owners themselves, unless a large 
operating sum has been provided, the pinch of debt begins 
to be felt. Miners' and operating expenses have to be 
paid. The coal that is sold may be on slow payments : a 
new company is indulgent to buyers in order to make sales. 
Interest is coming due. Coal must be put out. **Easy" 
coal must be mined. It is wasteful, but it is a wild run 
to cover, to outstrip the receiver. The receiver most likely 
wins the race after a short run. When the new company 
takes possession, it finds much of the mine spoiled, much 
valuable coal hopelessly lost. 

If the equipped mine is operated under lease, the roy- 
alty has to be large to cover the owners' fixed charges; 
a minimum royalty payable by the lessee, whether earned 
or not, is expected. The lessee is not especially solicitous 
about the future of the mine after his lease expires. He 
''hogs" the coal, piles ''gob" against the pillars so that they 



24 COAL 

cannot be drawn, mines '*easy" coal, and wastes the coal 
more recklessly than even the sheriff-pursued owner would 
have done. 

Fourth. The Apathy of the People 

It may not be using exactly the right term to call *'the 
apathy of the people" the cause of the waste of coal in 
mining. It is, no doubt, more accurate to say they failed 
to devise and apply a preventive or check on waste. If the 
whole^ people had for half a century been as awake to the 
value of coal as they were during the Great War, they 
would have insisted that our government conserA^e our 
supply and devise some way to stop waste. So far as they 
in general had any thought about the matter at all they 
reasoned: 'The governments of the States and United 
States have sold the coal with the surface of the land. 
The new owner has paid his money for the coal as truly 
as for the surface ; if he chooses to waste his own prop- 
erty, that is his concern." 

Recent events have aroused the people to the fact that 
they have a paramount interest, as a nation, in the coal, — 
that all the coal is, in fact, held in trust for the whole 
people ; that coal mining is essentially different from sur- 
face farming; that coal mining is a destructive industry 
as farming is not, and that it is doubly destructive when 
coal is destroyed. 

While coal cannot rightfully be taken from its owner 
without reasonable compensation, the owner cannot do 
with it exactly as he pleases. He cannot refuse to sell 
it and thus freeze us. If the refusal to sell causes death, 
he is morally guilty of murder. During the war, if mine 
ovvmers had closed their mines and refused to sell their 
coal and thus paralyzed every energy that won the war, 
they woud have had a rude awakening. However, that 
would have been true of the wheat owner, as well. In 
time of peace when miners refused to work, and so far as 
possible hindered others from working, if this refusal to 
Vv^ork and hindering others from working caused death, 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 25 



they were guilty of murder. If men are able to work 
and will not work, and that refusal causes death, then 
they are murderers. 

If we are awake to the value of coal to us, how long 
will we stay awake? We are awake to-day and asleep 
to-morrow. If there is a shortage of coal, we know that 
it is because the coal is not taken from the ground. As 
to the future, there will always be coal in the ground 
ready to be dug. Anyway, "sufficient unto the day is the 
good thereof." 

If we are told that wasteful mining methods and waste- 
ful use are destroying what, in fact, is held in trust for 
us and by us, we would express our real indifference 
by saying: ''We will have enough for us and to spare." 
That coal is at the base of our commercial and industrial 
supremacy arouses us very little. Besides, our coal is 
"inexhaustible." Our "inexhaustible resources" rings froi» 
every Fourth of July platform : we can feed the world, we 
can coal the world, we can whip the world. But not only 
are we lulled to quiet by these beautiful writings and 
speeches, but by misleading statements supposed to come 
from sources which we ought to — and do — respect. 

Fifth. Misleading Statement of the Amount of Our 
Coal Resources 

The rhetoric of the orator and the boast of the per- 
fervid American are generally taken at a discount. But 
when they quote so respectable an authority as the Geo- 
logical survey of the United States everybody takes notice. 
When they say that the Geological Survey estimates that 
the coal supply will last four thousand to six thousand 
years, the average hearer does not trouble himself to ask: 
"Where is the coal ; where will our posterity have to go to 
get it ; what kind of coal ; how thick are the veins ; how 
deep will they have to go to get them?" He thinks it 
means that the regions that are now producing good coal — 
such as Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and other 
Eastern States — will be mining coal just as they are now 



26 COAL 

four to six thousand years hence. If so, why trouble our 
brains about conservation. The end of the world will, 
maybe, come about the time the coal is exhausted; if not, 
the ingenuity of our American scientist will discover a 
substitute. Why bother, anyway, about our so distant rela- 
tives ? 

Our confidence in the accuracy of these optimistic state- 
mients is somewhat shaken by this speech lately made by 
George Otis Smith, head of the Geological Survey, who is 
certainly able to say in what sense those optimistic reports 
are meant: 

America's coal is her pride. More than half of the world's 
estimated supply is in the territory of the United States. Our 
coal in 1918 constituted forty-eight per cent of the coal that 
went into the world's bins. That percentage measures the 
share of our coal industry in the world's business, for rela- 
tively few of the wheels of modern industry and commerce 
can turn unless coal furnishes the energy. However, the in- 
heritor of great wealth often proves a spendthrift, and pride 
goes before destruction. So, our first impression as to Amer- 
ica's wealth may be too optimistic, and we may need to think 
less of the millions and millions of tons of coal which we are 
told lie awaiting our needs over the length and breadth of the 
land, and to ask for more details as to where this coal is, and 
how much oil it remains in the older mining districts. Before 
we indulge in mental arithmetic in figuring out the life of our 
coal resources, we may as well set down the broad fact that 
the best and most accessible coal is mined first. From this 
premise follows the practical prophecy that with the passing 
of time in our rapid industrial expansion, we may expect for 
our future coal output decreasing quality and increasing cost. 

Let us try to picture the extent to which we have mined our 
best coal, and also the rate at which we are using up the fuel 
resources upon which so many industries are founded. I have 
had figures compiled for me which present the available facts 
regarding typical coal fields. 

First. The Pittsburg coal bed. If it is mined at the present 
rate, the exhaustion of this coal bed, the largest in Pennsyl- 
vania, must be measured by the span of a single generation; 
at least we can see the peak of production close at hand, if 
indeed, it has not already been passed, and long before the 
€nd of this century coal mining in the Pittsburg field will be 
a memory except where a mine here and there is working on 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 27 



outcrop coal, or pillars or odds and ends left behind in the 
big days of Pittsburg coal. 

Second. Even when we turn to examine a less nearly ex- 
hausted coal field, such as the Pocahontas field in Virginia 
and West Virginia, we find that the increasing rate of output 
tends to cut down the earlier and more optimistic calculation 
of expectancy of life. Expressed in human units, the estimates 
for the Pocahontas field are reduced from four or five genera- 
tions to three, or even two. And these are the fields which 
are regarded as our choicest industrial coals. 

In the coal fields of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois the outlook 
is better, but the coal is poorer. In these states even without 
allow^ing for the increased duty placed upon their coal as the 
Eastern fields are approaching exhaustion, we may put the 
expectancy of life at a few centuries. 

These National resources are of value only as they are used, 
but no business man shuts his eyes to the rate at which the 
stock of raw material in his storehouse is being depleted. 

This estimate of the expectancy of the life of the East- 
ern coal field seems rather too pessimistic for Pennsylvania 
and the Virginias but too liberal for Indiana and Illinois. 
Scholl, several years ago, estimated that the coal of Il- 
linois w^ill be practically exhausted in two hundred years, 
if no additional demand be made upon it from the ex- 
hausted Eastern fields. If it is true that in a century the 
coal that was formerly supplied by Pennsylvania and Vir- 
ginia will be exhausted and its place has to be partially 
taken by Illinois coal, the two hundred years will be greatly 
reduced. We are surprised to read the statement by the 
head of the Geological Survey that Pennsylvania coal will 
be merely a memory in less than a century, while we have 
been constantly regaled with the flourish of four thousand 
to six thousand years of coal life. Certainly the Geological 
Survey must be misquoted, or George Otis Smith, the 
orator, must be talking of a different matter than Smith, 
the director. 

Let us turn, then, to the latest estimate actually made 
by the Survey, in order to see what we may really expect, 
if it is reliable. 



CHAPTER IV 

COAL RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES 

ESTIMATED BY 

THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

Estimate Amount of Coal Originally in the Ground— Esti- 
mate Includes All Kinds of Coal Down to Depth of Six Thou- 
sand Feet, in Veins Fourteen Inches and More in Thickness, 
Having Ash Thirty Per Cent and Less — Ways of Estimating 
Life of the Coal Supply — Rate of Consumption Continue As At 
Present : Time, Three Thousand to Four Thousand Years^ — 
Rate of Increase of Consumption Continue As for Last Twenty 
Years : Time, a Century or Two — Parker's Probability Curve — 
Estimate of No Value in Determining Length of Our Indus- 
trial or Commercial Supremacy — Agree That Our Best Coal 
Will Be Exhausted in a Century. 

1. Estimate of the Amount of Coal Originally in the 
Ground 

The estimate of the Geological Survey includes the 
''total quantity of coal that ever v^ill be mined in the 
United States/' 

Marius R. Campbell, in Professional Paper 100, issued 
by the United States Geological Survey, thus explained 
the method they pursued: 

'Tn undertaking to make an estimate of the original 
tonnage of coal in the ground, certain assumptions must 
be made as a foundation, and the results obtained will de- 
pend largely upon these assumptions. The three principal 
assumptions are: (1) minimum thickness of bed of the 
different ranks and grades of coal that can be mined; (2) 
maximum depth to which mining may be carried in the 
different ranks, and (3) maximum percentage of ash that 
may be permitted in the different ranks of coal. In at- 
tempting to make estimate of the original content of the 
different fields of the United States the Geological Survey 
decided that it would be a waste of money and time to 

28 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 29 



attempt to make estimates based on present mining prac- 
tice in the United States, for such estimates would be mis- 
leading in that they would not represent the total quantity 
of coal that undoubtedly Avill be made available in the 
future. With this point in mind it was decided to attempt 
to estimate the total quantity of coal that ever •zvill be mined 
in the United States. In doing so, the present mining 
pracice throughout the world was considered, and the 
assumptions regarding maximum depth, minimum thick- 
ness, and maximum impurities were based upon present 
practice in the world. But, in general, the limits now ob- 
served w^ere exceeded, because it is almost certain that 
the future will go far beyond the present operations." 

As the deepest coal mines in the world (in Belgium) 
reach a depth of about four thousand feet, and as shafts 
for copper and other metals have been sunk to depths 
below five thousand feet, it was thought that future coal 
mining might be carried to a depth of six thousand feet. 
But in order to meet varied requirem.ents, two lim^its were 
set, one at a depth of three thousand feet for easily recov- 
erable coal, and the other at a depth of six thousand feet. 

Similarly, the minimum thickness of coal bed mined 
in the United States is about fifteen inches; therefore, 
fourteen inches were taken as the minimum of high-rank 
coals ^for estimating the original tonnage in the several 
fields. The minimum thickness varies according to the 
rank of the coal, being about two feet in sub-bituminous 
coal and three feet in lignite. 

The maxim_um percentage of ash permissible was thirty 
per cent, but it is questionable whether it would not better 
be placed at twenty-five per cent. 

Basing the coal suppl}^ on these assumptions, maximxum 
depth three thousand feet, minimum thickness of vein four- 
teen inches, rnaximum percentage of ash thirty per cent, 
and the best information obtainable as to area, they esti- 
mate the original content to be 3,553,637,100,000 short tons. 

Estimating coal beds of like character down to six 



30 COAL 



thousand feet, the content is placed at 4,231,352,000,000 
short tons. 

2. Estimates of the Life of the Coal Resources of the 
United States 

Having estimated the original content of the coal areas 
of the United States, in order to determine the probable 
life of the coal, we must fix upon some rate of depletion. 

Three guesses were made by the Geological Survey for 
the purposes of determining the life of the coal. 

First. Suppose the Present Rate of Consumption to 
Continue Till AH the Coal Is Exhausted. 

The depletion at present, including waste, is at least a 
billion tons each year. At that rate 3,200,000,000,000 tons 
would last thirty-two hundred years, and 4,000,000,000,000 
tons would last four thousand years. These are the esti- 
mates that the public generally attributes to the Geological 
Survey. 

Second . Suppose the Rate of Output to Continue Each 
Decade, to Increase At the Same Rate At Which it Has 
Increased in the Last Two Decades. 

This assum.ption leads to a quite absurd conclusion. 
In the last twenty years the coal output has increased 
threefold. If the output increases threefold in the next 
tv^renty years, it will, including waste, be three billion tons 
in 1940. Continuing to increase at that rate, trebling every 
twenty years, for one hundred and fifty years, it would 
reach the enormous depletion of 3,270,000,000,000 tons a 
year. That is, the calculated output in the year 2070 would 
be as great as all th^ estimated coal originally in the ground 
down to three thousand feet. Of course, the supply would 
be exhausted long before that, in not more than seventy- 
five years. 

Third, E. W. Parker's Forecast. 

In 1908 E. W. Parker attempted to forecast the time 
when coal production in the United States would reach a 
maximum, and what the annual production would be at 
that time. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 31 



He grouped the production by decades, from 1835 up 
to 1908, and plotted these groups, thus making a curve 
of past production. Then, from the law of increase that 
appeared in this past production curve, he continued the 
curve and found that it reached a maximum in 2055, when 
the production will be five times the present output. After 
the maximum has been reached, owing to increased cost 
of haulage and hoisting from deep shafts and working 
thin veins, the production would gradually decrease. In 
a way thus briefly outlined he estimated the time limit of 
all coal, good, bad, and indifferent, — at two hundred and 
thirty-five years. 

Campbell, in commenting on these estimates, says: 

*The fact must be remembered, that the bulk of the 
coal being mined to-day, is the best in the country, and 
that before long, perhaps within fifty years, much of the 
high-grade coal will be exhausted." 

In another part of his report he says: 

The great bulk of the coal of this country is low-rank 
bituminous, lignite and sub-bituminous, and the high-rank 
coals are relatively scarce. This is an important point in 
conservation, as it means that our best coals will be the first 
to be exhausted, and that such exhaustion may occur in the 
not very distant future. The best steaming coal, the semi- 
bituminous, is limited practically to two eastern provinces, 
and the exhaustion of this coal will be a greater calamity to 
the country than the loss of all the anthracite, for it is adapted 
to more uses and has greater efficiency. 

This estimate by the Geological Survey has been dis- 
cussed at considerable length because it has been used 
so extensively and ignorantly to the misleading of the 
people in general, and being misquoted and distorted, has 
so minimized the gravity of the coal problem that legis- 
lators and statesmen have not thought there is a coal 
problem. 

We find, then, that this estimate is: 

First, An Entirely Academic Estimate 

It has no value in determining the duration of our in- 
dustrial and commercial supremacy among the nations of 



32 COAL 



the world, nor even our industrial and economic life. The 
subject would have more vital interest for us if it were 
divided into three divisions : 

1. The division lying east and south of the Ohio River 
and Ohio, and east of the Mississippi River, (a) The 
present content of that field is known to a fair approxi- 
mation, (b) The annual depletion is known, and if we 
assume that the present rate continues till the coal is ex- 
hausted, the problem is fairly definite, (c) The length of 
life is likely to be so small that any assumed law of in- 
crease will not be hard to apply. If George Otis Smith 
is right, the answer will be a century. 

2. The division lying north and west of the Ohio River 
and the Pennsylvania line, and east of the Mississippi. As 
much is known about that as about Division 1, and our 
answer will be two centuries. 

3. The great coal fields of the West. We are knovv^- 
ing every year more about the coal of the Far West. It 
will be a fruitful field for the speculation of the Geological 
Survey ; but at present the Divisions 1 and 2 are of para- 
mount interest. Apply the assumptions made by the Survey 
to Division 1 : 

(a) The three thousand to six thojisand depth limit 

Any coal counted in the estimate by the Geological Survey 
below one thousand, was not found in Division 1. In the 
bituminous field of Western Pennsylvania the depth of 
the Pittsburgh coal varies from zero to seven hundred 
feet, average about four hundred feet. The other veins. 
where they are worth considering, are not on an average 
any deeper. In West Virginia, the Pottsville veins are 
from one hundred and fifty to five hundred feet below 
the surface. There is no vein that is one thousand feet 
deep in the Appalachian coal field. So it is evident that 
any coal counted by the Geological Survey below one thou- 
sand feet must have been in other fields than Division 1. 

Any coal counted by the Surve}^ below one thousand 
feet was not found in Division 2. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 33 

In Ohio the coal is not deeper than in Pennsylvania and 
Virginia. In Indiana it varies from stripping coal to six 
hundred feet. In Illinois very little of the coal is one 
thousand feet in depth, but most of it two hundred to 
five hundred feet. It is evident, therefore, that the great 
bulk of coal included in this estimate is poor coal and lignite. 

(b) Thickness dozvn to fourteen inches. It is safe 
to say that no coal vein as thin as fifteen inches is now 
operated commercially except in some parts of the an- 
thracite field, or where the thin vein is separated from 
another vein by such a thin stratum of rock that the two 
can be worked together. 

The operator w^ho would sink a shaft six thousand feet 
deep, with the hope of working a fourteen-inch vein of 
coal, in the first place wouldn't find any such vein in any 
region that is now being mined, and in the second place 
could not work it if he did. The expense of sinking shaft 
and manyway six thousand feet, — or three ithousand feet, 
for that matter,~the expense of brushing and hauling out 
the rock that must be taken from the top or bottom of 
the vein in order that it could be operated at all, ventilating 
and cooling a temperature of 120 to 140 degrees, the small 
output, the high wages that must be paid to induce men 
to work, is so great that it seems to us absurd to include 
it in any estimate. 

Second, Value of Geological Survey's Estimate 

The Geological Survey does not treat its estimate in 
the serious way in w^hich it is generally and naturally taken 
by those who read the quoted statement: ''Coal will last 
four thousand years." 

Campbell says : 

'The high-grade coal may not last more than fifty 
years.'' 'The high-rank coals are relatively scarce." Ex- 
haustion ma}^ occur in the near future. 

George Otis Smith, head of the Survey, says : 

"The Eastern field will be exhausted in one, two, or 
three generations." 



34 COAL 

-No doubt, coal will be mined in the United States for 
many, — perhaps thousands, — of years. Coal will be mined 
in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, long after the 
main part of the coal has been depleted and industrial and 
commercial supremacy, as far as they depend on coal, 
have passed from us. 

Coal in veins too thin to be considered now will be 
mined at very high cost. Poor coal and lignite will be 
burned in byproduct ovens, or in other ways not now 
known. 

Aside from the fact that ninety-eight per cent of the 
coal we consume or export comes from our best coal, is 
the disturbing fact that parts of the field in which we were 
counting on good coal are found to be barren of coal. 
Professor S. C. White says of one such field : 

''We must accept the fact that at least six counties in 
West Virginia, in which the Pittsburg vein of coal was 
supposed to exist, are entirely without the vein." 

In_ regions that are often reported as having a large 
number of veins there are often found to be not more than 
two or three, more generally but one really workable vein. 
A stump orator, a promoter, or even an honest man, tells 
us that West Virginia has twenty veins of coal. Natur- 
ally, the hearer expects to find twenty workable veins, one 
above the other. He is surprised when presented with the 
record of borings that have been made, which show that 
the veins run from black shale, a mere trace, a few inches 
thick, one foot, two feet, with large strata of rock inter- 
vening, and only one or two workable veins. 



CHAPTER V 

WHAT CAUSES ARE AT WORK TO PROMOTE COAL CONSERVATION 

Low Price of Coal Land Partially Cured — Over Capacity of 
Mines Still a Menace— Mines Have More Expensive Equipment 
Than Before the War — Good Coal Land Soon Will Be Dear 
and Scarce — Competition of Sellers Will Cease, for Demand 
Will Exceed Supply — Weak Companies Will Be Eliminated — 
Four Classes of Coal Land to Be Considered: Coal Land Held 
for Government Use — Coal Land Leased for Mining Commercial 
Coal — Coal Land in Private Hands That Needs Regulation — 
Coal Land Not Needing Regulation. 

Having (1) discussed the importance of coal to us for 
military efificiency and for our industrial and commercial 
life and supremacy; (2) having shown that coal is basic, 
and that all the people have such claim upon our coal sup- 
ply that private holders cannot do with it as they please, 
cannot at their pleasure withhold it from the people, must 
not sell it at an exorbitant price, must not waste it with 
impunity, that labor must not refuse to produce it and 
hinder others from producing it; (3) having shown that 
our good coal easily and cheaply won, is now being mined 
almost to the exclusion of the poorer coal, and that there- 
fore our good coal is soon (measured in the life of a 
nation) to be exhausted; (4) having shown that much 
coal has been lost in mining, — one and a half tons for every 
ton of anthracite produced prior to 1893, and nearly as 
much bituminous according to the report of the Commis- 
sion on waste in Pennsylvania, it is worth while to ask, 
and all the nation ought to ask: (a) Have all the causes 
of waste been eliminated, or if not all, how many of them? 

Some of the causes which promoted waste have been 
given us : 

( 1 ) Low Cost of Coal Land 

In all the bituminous coal fields there are still very cheap 
coal lands for sale ; but in a considerable part of the East- 

35 



36 COAL 



ern fields, coal land is now lield^ or sold at so high a price 
that the owner cannot afford to waste his coaL 

Veins that were formerly condemned as being too thin 
to operate profitably are being worked, and abandoned 
mines are being reopened, wdiere they have not been to- 
tally ruined in their former working. This is true in the 
anthracite field and in some of tlTe coking fields. The 
author knows of an operation that originally consisted of 
only thirty-three acres of coking coal, which cost three 
thousand dollars an acre, and which required the making 
of a narrow-gauge railroad of several miles to reach it. 
Every ton of that coal will, no doubt, be mined. But large 
acreage has been bought at from ten to forty or fifty dol- 
lars an acre, and large acreage of good coal still offered 
at those prices. 

(2) Destructive Competition 

This has been one of the capital causes of waste. Has 
its threat been eliminated? The capacity of all our coal 
mines is 2,715,000 tons a day. If they would operate three 
hundred days in the year, as the mines in Belgium often 
do, the output would be 814,500,000 tons. If they operate 
only_^two hundred and fifty days in the year, the output is 
678,500,000 tons. The market demand now is not more 
than half a billion to 550,000,000 tons a year. The surplus 
capacity is, therefore, at least 125,000,000 tons a year. The 
result is either a price-cutting, to try to force this surplus 
on an unvv^lling market, or* a restriction of output for lack 
of orders. Either v/ay promotes waste, because : 

First. A company that secures enough orders at a 
too low price, in order to keep its mine operating a large 
part^ of the time, must mine ''easy" coal wastefully, and 
sacrifice coal that costs high to mine. 

Second. The company that is thus cheated of its fair 
proportion of ^ the orders, because it will not sell below 
normal cost, is, of course, compelled to work few days 
in the month. Idle time is costly time. Overhead charges, 
fixed charges, salaries, pumping, depreciation, go on. Coal 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 37 



sold at what would be a fair profit, if the mine operated 
all the time and mined all coal carefully, will now net the 
operator a loss. Some element of cost must be eliminated. 
The only resource seems to be to mine "easy" coal waste- 
fully and to refuse to mine coal that is costly to win. 

The way in which a radical change in demand and a 
sudden increase in surplus, with its increase of compe- 
tition, promoted waste had many illustrations at the close 
of the Great War. A typical example is furnished by a 
large operating company in Indiana. It had been oper- 
ating all its mines during the war, and since the entire 
output could be sold, even at a low price, it had profit 
enough so that all its high-cost coal as well as low-cost 
coal was mined. When the armistice was signed, demand 
suddenly dropped. The company could not operate all its 
mines all the time. Selling price was not advanced, pro- 
duction cost was increased. A number of its mines had 
a considerable acreage unmined at the outskirts of its 
holdings. This could have been mined profitably by run- 
ning all the time, but if mined now, it will be at a loss. 
The mines were dismantled. The coal that was costly to 
mine w^as left and irrevocably lost. 

(3) Have Weak Mines Been Made Stronger By the War? 

We have given the financial weakness of many mining 
companies as one of the causes of waste. Has the war 
cured this weakness? Many weak companies have been 
made weaker and many stronger companies are less able 
to engage in the battle of fierce competition. During the 
war every mine operator was urged, even commanded, to 
increase his output to the limit. To get large output he 
must buy and install more machinery. For this he had 
to pay from two hundred to five hundred per cent advance 
over former prices. He was not allowed to sell his coal 
at a price that would pay ofif this extra expense during the 
war. At the end of the war he had a much more costly 
equipment than at the beginning. If he could make a large 
enough profit, he might be able in time to cover this extra 



38 COAL 



cost with the profit. The capacity of production, as we 
have seen, is greater than demand. He cannot make a 
redeeming profit against such competition as he will meet. 
He is confronted with the old, old problem of pre-war 
times. Will it cost him less to shut down his m.ine and 
save his coal, or will it cost him less to pay for mining 
the coal and give it to the consumer, — or pay him for taking 
it? n he decides to operate, he reduces the cost as much 
as he can. High-cost coal will be left in the mine. It 
may as well be left in the mine as to be recovered at high 
cost and given away with a bonus. This is not an over- 
drawn picture, but one which everyone conversant with 
the coal industry has seen drawn many times. The hun- 
dreds of wrecked coal companies, even large, apparently 
strong companies, in the past testify to the same thing. 
How can the future do better? 

(4) Will These Causes of Loss Cure Themselves? 

1. The time will come in the near future when no 
good coal land will be cheap enough to waste. Coal land 
containing good coal will be dear and hard to find. Any 
fortunate owner will be unwilling to waste his good coal. 

2. The time will come when strong competition be- 
tween sellers of good coal will cease. The competition will 
be between buyers, bidding against each other, the unsuc- 
cessful contenting himself as best he may with poor coal. 

3. All weak companies will be eliminated. Receivers 
and strong companies will cure this cause. Cost of plant 
and cost of production will do in the bituminous field what 
it has already done in the anthracite field. 

This day will come, though all avoidable waste and 
loss are stopped and all possible conservation be secured. 
An aroused public should not allow useless waste and loss 
to hasten that "doleful'' day. 

If what has been said is true, the coal problem is a 
problem worthy of the most serious thought by the nnost 
serious-minded men. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 39 



The entire coal field naturally divides itself, economic- 
ally, into four divisions : ( 1 ) Coal land held by the United 
States government, for the exclusive use of the coal for 
its battleships and other ships. (2) Coal land held by the 
government and operated directly or by lease for mining 
commercial coal. (3) Coal land in the possession of pri- 
vate owners, which needs control. (4) Coal land in pri- 
vate ownership which is now operated skilfully, scientific- 
ally, and economically. 



CHAPTER VI 

GOVERNMENT COAL LAND HELD FOR ITS EXCLUSIVE USE 

''navy" COAL LAND BATTLESHIP COAL LAND 

Navy Coal Must Be Quick Firing — High in Heat Value- 
Smokeless— Not Subject to Spontaneous Combustion — ^Alaska 
Coal disappointing — Pocahontas Coal Answers All These Tests 
and Is Standard— Government Should Gain Control of Poca- 
hontas Coal and Keep for Its Exclusive Use — Pocahontas Coal 
Is Being Rapidly Depletedi — Is of Small Area — Hov^ Gain 
Control — How Operate — How West Virginia Be Compensated 
— How Other Users Than Governmnet Be Taken Care of — Is. 
the Purchase a Good Investment? — If We Do Not Conserve 
This Coal Our Navy Will Be of Little Use in Time of War. 

''Our Battleships Without Fuel." If this had faced 
the public in the headlines of our morning paper one morn- 
ing in 1917, horror and panic v/ould have seized thef entire 
people, and they would have said : 

The war is lost without our navy. Somebody has blundered. 
It cannot be that we have no coal. Stop every car that is 
moving to any factory, even a car bringing coal to us. We 
will for a time bear bitter cold and eat uncooked food. Rush 
every car to the coast, to the collier, to the battleship. 

What, if the next morning paper had said : 

Our battleships are without fuel because they will not take 
the only kind of coal we can offer them; our only good navy 
coal is all gone; we have let everybody use it for every kind 
of purpose, and now there is none to be had. The only kind 
of coal that we can offer is poor coal, at least, poor for navy 
use. The battleship officers say our ships are worse than 
useless fueled with that poor coal, when pitted against ships 
fueled with good navy coal. Better dock our ships and save 
the lives of our men. 

Fortunately, no such calamity overtook us. No ships 
that plowed the oceans were driven with better fuel than 
ours were. Our '*Navy'' coal is equal to any coal in the 
world. We have enough of it to last probably half a cen- 
tury, as it is now being dissipated. If the government is 

40 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 41 



not intending to own and conserve it, our programme of 
battleship building ought to be so planned that the last 
battleship will be junked in half a century. If a battleship 
is intended to fight, if need be, it will miss its calling if 
we are at war, at the end of about half a century, with a 
nation that has good navy coal for it^ ships. 

But we are not planning to junk our last battleship ever. 

We are building the greatest battleships in the world. 
We are arming them with the most pow'erful guns that 
they will carry. We train skilled officers and gunners. We 
install the most powerful engines to drive them. They are 
fighting machines. Our cruisers are racers equipped to 
fight. They challenge the swiftest enemy ship to outrun 
them when they pursue. Fuel them with poor coal, and 
let the enemy fuel with the best coal, and the race is lost ; 
a slow ship with good coal may outrun a swift ship with 
poor coal. Our naval authorities recognize the importance 
of good navy coal. They will accept no other. A well- 
thought-out scheme of coaling stations supplied with good 
coal and colliers supplied with apparatus for coaling at sea 
are as carefully planned as the ships themselves. But this 
providence, so far, has merely looked to the immediate 
future. It is doubtful if they have had a thought beyond 
a year or two of the future. It is, perhaps, beyond their 
province tQ look much beyond a year-to-year supply. 

But legislators and an intelligent public ought to be 
awake to the fact that if present conditions and tendencies 
are not changed, the navy will be without coal or forced 
to use inferior coal at a time not more than a century, and 
probably half a century distant. 

Our plea for immediate and efifective action on the part 
of our government will fall on the deaf ears of those who 
do not concern themselves about what will happen after 
they are dead. But let them plan to live for fifty years, 
and they will see what I have described, unless government 
intervenes. It will also have little interest for those who 
can only think in terms of our limitless ''inexhaustible" 
coal supply. 



42 COAL 

Even so, it must be remembered that, few of the 
really good coals, as they are rated, are good navy coal. 
A good navy coal must answer these four tests : 

(1) It must be quick-firing. It must respond to a 
sudden demand for more steam and it must not clinker 
under forced draft. 

(2) It must be high in heat value. The greater the 
heat value of the coal, the greater will be the steaming 
radius of the ship when it leaves port with its bunkers 
full, and the greater the efficiency of the stokers. 

(3) It should not be liable to spontaneous combustion. 

(4) The more nearly smokeless it is the better. 

An army using smoking powder would be at a great 
disadvantage if pitted against an army using smokeless 
powder. This we found to our everlasting disgrace when 
we sent soldiers^^ equipped with smoking powder to fight in 
Cuba against Spaniards equipped with smokeless powder. 
It is almost as important that a ship's funnel should be 
smokeless as that the gun's muzzle should be smokeless. 

Where is an adequate supply of such coal? 

First, A Supply for Ships on the Pacific Coast 

The principal supply for the Pacific Coast was for- 
merly shipped around Cape Horn, and now by the Panama 
Canal, from' the Eastern coal fields of the United States. 
We had hopes that ships on the Pacific Coast would be 
supplied with good navy coal from the Alaska coal fields 
when the railroad to those coal fields is completed, and the 
coal is sufficiently developed. But recent tests made of 
the coal in actual trial in the ship's furnace seem to show 
that the coal is not good navy coal. If so, the ships on 
the Pacific Coast will have to be coaled from the Eastern 
fields as at present, and will continue their drain upon the 
Eastern coal. I shall give an account of the tests of the 
Alaska coal later. To show the importance, however, that 
scientific and practical men attach to a supply for our ships 
it IS interesting to note what action they took and what 
opinion they expressed with regard to that Alaskan field 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 43 



when they assumed that it had good navy coal. Secretary 
Fisher, when he was about to visit Alaska for the purpose 
of gaining first-hand information that would help him to 
determine how to aid in the development of the country, 
consulted coal men and metallurgical societies, to get their 
opinion. He asked them whether, in their opinion, the coal 
land in Alaska ought to be sold by the government or 
whether the United States ought to retain title to it and 
operate it, either directly or by lease. 

The following resolution was passed by the largest Met- 
allurgical Society in the United States and sent to Secretary 
Fisher. It embodies the general advice which he received 
from all sources : 

There are now known to exist in Alaska but two relatively 
small fields containing high-grade navy fuel, and inasmuch as 
the government now possesses no original source of fuel sup- 
ply on the Pacific Coast, it is desirable, in the interest of the 
National Defense that a selected area of these fields be held 
and operated under the direct control of the government. 

Second, Coal for the Atlantic Fleet 

All these people were very properly concerned about a 
coal supply for the Pacific fleet, as the ships will have to 
depend on imported coal or bring it around from our 
Eastern coast, if Alaska cannot furnish it. It is not very 
surprising either that they should not be solicitous about 
a supply for our greater Atlantic fleet and government 
ships, for they thought the supply in the East enough for 
ages. But the resolution passed by the Metallurgical So- 
ciety, with change of three words, is just as proper for 
our Eastern fleet. 

There are now known to exist on the Atlantic Coast but two 
relatively small fields containing high-grade navy fuel, and 
inasmuch as the government now possesses no original source 
of such supply on the Atlantic Coast, it is desirable, in the 
interest of national defense, that a selected area of these fields 
be owned and held and operated under the direct control of 
the government. 

These two fields are the Pocahontas and New River 



44 COAL 

coal field in West Virginia and the semi-bituminous coal 
field in Central Pennsylvania. When anyone speaks of 
standard navy coal, however, he is assumed to mean Poca- 
hontas coal. When the Bering River coal of Alaska was 
being tested for navy use, Pocahontas coal was brought 
to Alaska and used as the standard. 

That the general government acquire and hold this coal, 
or the largest part of it, for its exclusive use is very urgent. 
(1) Pocahontas is the standard "navy" coal of the United 
States. It is quick firing, of high heat value, is not liable 
to spontaneous combustion, makes little smoke in burning. 
During the submarine menace, ships were required to have 
enough smokeless coal in bunker to steam them through 
the submarine zone. Geologist I. C. White says of this 
coal : 

Pocahontas coal is an ideal steam fuel, low in volatile mat- 
ter and high in fixed carbon, while low in ash, sulphur, and 
moisture. It gives off intense heat with a nearly smokeless 
combustion. The small proportion of sulphur insures safety 
from spontaneous combustion on shipboard. So it has become 
the id^eal fuel for steamship and general navy purposes and 
its usfe on those lines is constantly increasing. 

(2) The Pocahontas Field Is of Small Area 

In 1908 I. C. White, State Geologist for West Virginia, 
estimated the entire area of the Pocahontas and New River 
fields together at two thousand five hundred and seventy- 
five square miles. Since that time at least seventy-five 
to one hundred square miles have been exhausted. If we 
count an area of twenty-five hundred square miles, or one 
million, six hundred thousand acres, each acre containing 
six thousand tons of coal, we find the content to be nine 
billion,, six hundred million tons. If we estimate, with 
Professor White, the depletion at fifty million tons a year, 
diis coal will last one hundred and ninety-two years. The 
real Pocahontas field does not cover more than five hun- 
dred square miles, or three hundred and twenty thousand 
acres with a content of one billion, nine hundred and 
twenty million tons. At the estimated exhaustion of fiftv 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 45 



million tons a year, this coal would last about forty years. 

In the Pocahontas field there are but two veins of the 
lower Pottsville or Pocahontas coal,— -named No. 3 and 
No. 4, — that are of workable thickness. Generally where 
No. 4 is found, No. 3 is thin or wanting. No. 3, w^hich 
is the great vein of the field, varies in thickness from two 
feet eight inches to seven feet. 

We can see now the basis upon which the head of the 
Geological Survey lately made our previously quoted state- 
ment. After giving a gloomy forecast of the life of the 
Pittsburg vein, he said : 

When we turn to examine a less nearly exhausted coal field 
as the Pocahontas, we find that increased rate of output tends 
to cut down the early and more optimistic calculation of ex- 
pectancy of life. Expressed in human units, the estimation 
for the Pocahontas field is cut down from four or five genera- 
tions to three, or even two. 

That is, down to sixty-five to one hundred years. 

The Field Is Being Rapidly Depleted 

This coal is being sent all over the Middle West, It is 
in demand in cities in which smoke-prevention is required. 
It is shipped to steel plants, where it is mixed with higher 
volatile coals and burned in byproduct ovens. The United 
States Steel Company burned three million tons of coal in 
a year, seventy-six per cent being Pocahontas coal. It is 
carried to the great docks at Newport News and Norfolk, 
and thence it goes to all points along the New England 
Coast for distribution in the interior. 

In addition to furnishing coal to battleships, this field 
is supplying bunker coal for nearly all ships plying between 
this and other countries. Up until a short time ago our 
smokeless operators furnished little bunker coal. Ships 
plying between England and the United States bunkered 
at English ports for the entird round trip. It was thought 
that American coals were not fit for steamship coal. When 
England began to limit the amount of coal she could spare 
from her battleships and ammunition plants, ships leaving 



46 COAL 

England for the United States took enough coal to bring 
them across the ocean and got coal here to take them back. 
Later they took coal here for the round trip. 

In addition, ships plying between South America and 
England now consume twice as much of our coal as for- 
merly and get it at Newport News. They cannot carry 
enough coal to take them from Newport News to South 
America for a cargo and across to Europe and return to 
Newport News, but bunker enough to take them from 
Newport News to South America and back, then bunker 
enough coal to take them from Newport News to Europe 
and back. During the war, on account of embargo on 
coal from England, the bottling up of Belgian, French, 
and German coal, the Pocahontas coal was carried to all 
neutral countries, and before we entered the war was 
carried to any of the Central belligerents we could reach, 
and to our Allies after we entered the war. If it had not 
been for the stress of their need of fuel, Pocahontas coal 
would not have had so fair a chance to show how good it 
is. It is very friable, and by the time it has passed a 
number of handlings, a considerable amount of it is 
crushed fine. 

It is common report that the first cargo of Pocahontas coal 
exported to Southern France was rejected on the ground that 
the consignor had sent ''slack," or the waste coal of the mines, 
instead of pure coal, as contracted for., Finally the purchaser 
was induced to give the supposed ''slack" coal a steaming 
test, where, to his great surprise, it surpassed any coal he had 
ever used for that purpose. 

Now nearly every nation is clamoring for this coal. 

The editor of a trade journal is so afraid that we shall 
damage our reputation, and thus check exportation, that 
he advocates the absolute prohibition of the shipment of 
any other than this coal, so that exportation may be rapidly 
increased. He says : 

If we are to build up a permanent export business, in order 
to meet the competition of English coal, only the premier coals 
of the country should be permitted to be shipped to foreign 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 47 



markets. Competition is bound to be keen and it will take 
the best coal we produce to give us a chance at all. In view 
of this, it should be the duty of the Bureau of Mines to find 
out the best coal for the export market. A list should be 
published of the permissible export coals and coals shipped 
to foreign ports should be confined to this list. 

The editor need no trouble himself conjuring up pos- 
sible and impossible legal machinery to hasten export of 
our best coal. That is the kind going into export, and, — 
more the pity! — our best coal will continue to go in in- 
creasing volume, if this exportation is not checked. The 
ordinary coal-users may not like to be treated as the chil- 
dren of the thrifty mother who sells her good butter and 
spreads meat-frying on her children's bread. They may 
not rise up in protest. But it is time for the American 
people, who not only have pride in our ships but place 
their firmest trust on them, if the emergency comes, to 
rise up in effective protest. Another source of unequal 
drain upon this coal is that the mines are non-union. Dur- 
ing the strike in 1919, when union mines were idle, these 
non-union mines produced almost to full capacity. 

How can the United States get possession of this navy 
coal land? The coal has been sold with the surface to pri- 
vate owners. The coal is theirs and may not be taken from 
them without compensation. A combination of three ways 
may be necessary or advisable, — (1) Purchase from the 
ozvner either the coal alone or both coal and surface; (2) 
Purchase from the lessees the leases which they hold; (3) 
Take by condemnation where actually necessary. 

Purchase from the Owners 

If the coal in any given case can be mined without dam- 
age to the surface, it is better to follow (the government's 
present way of disposing of its coal land, that is, consider 
the surface and coal separately, leave the owner in pos- 
session of the surface and buy only the coal. In this way 
cultivation of the surface is encouraged. Where mining 
thfe coal under the farm is likely to damage the surface, 
or where the surface is necessary for construction of roads 



48 COAL 

and railroads, or where the owner does not want ito sepa- 
rate coal and surface, then both may be bought. 

Purchase from the Lessee the Lease That He Holds 

It is said that ninety per cent of ithe mines in that 
field are being operated under lease. It is probable that 
these leases would better be bought. If the lease is for 
long enough time to exhaust the tract leased, it will not 
be necessary to buy the landowner's right, as he will, no 
doubt, be glad to exchange the present lessee for such a 
good paymaster as the United States, — the more so, as he 
will understand 'that the new lessee will see to it that no 
coal is wasted and the return from royalty will be so much 
greater from scientific mining than it is likely to be as 
mined at present. 

What of the Equipment and Improvements Connected 
zvith the Mines? The solution may involve any one of 
three conditions: 

First. The equipment and improvement made by the 
lessee. In this case the niegotiaition for the lease will in- 
clude the equipment and improvements. 

Second. The equipment may have been furnished by 
the lessor, to be returned by the lessee in as good condi- 
tion as is reasonable, wear and tear considered. In that 
case ithe use of the equipment passes with the lease subject 
to the same conditions of return. 

Third. The equipment is furnished by the lessor, but 
the United States government dismantles and abandons 
the mine. It may be Ithat where thie whole field is con- 
sidered, certain mines will be abandoned for one or an- 
other reason. It may be better to mine the area being 
mined by a certain plant from another opening, or its 
output may not be needed till later. In this case both coal 
and equipment must be bought, or some other equitable 
arrangement be miade. 

The Government May Take By Condemnation Proceedings 
It is probable that small occasion] will arise for the ex- 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 49 

ercise of condemnation proceedings. The proftts from 
coal mining have been so small and uncertain for the most 
part that owners will be very willing to sell at a reasonable 
price. 

Everyone familiar with the coal business knows of 
large areas of coal land offered for sale. But it may be 
that some owners may be holding for a high price, or 
where ithey know that government wants their coal land, 
will place the price unreasonably high. In such case the 
government may have to acquire the land by condemnation. 
Is the government exceeding its legitimate powers in taking 
coal land in that way? The government itakes by con- 
demnation lands needed for arsenals, forts, and army posts. 
Railroads take land for right of way and confiscate coal 
for their engines on the theory that they are performing 
a governmenit function. The government would confiscate 
coal foii its ships, paying the owner for the coal. It must 
be able to take now the coal which it will sorely need in 
the future for its ships. 

How Much of This Navy Coal Should Be Acquired? 

If the Pocahontas field alone be acquired, only about 
five hundred square miles, or ^three hundred and twenty 
thousand acres, containing about two billion tons, will be 
covered. If the New River field be also included, the 
area will be probably twenty-five hundred square miles, 
or one million six hundred thousand acres, containing 
about ten billion tons. It may be determined to acquire 
some area between those limits. But it seems wise to con- 
sider the entire field, for, as will hereafter be suggestd, 
some parts of tthe field that are now being mined for ex- 
port, and some parts now being mined for certain essential 
purposes, in the Pocahontas field may be allowed to con-r 
tinue, and at least that much should be available for navy 
use in the New River field. 

What Price Should Be Paid for the Coal? 

1. A complete map should be made, showing topogra- 



50 COAL 

phy, roads, railroads already built, together with the roads 
that will be needed in the development of the field. On 
this map the holdings of each ov/ner and lessee should be 
drawn, showing its accessibility, its nearness to a means 
of transportation to tidewater, the field of development to 
which it naturally belongs, and its distance from the operat- 
ing planit through which it will be mined. 

2. Make use of the data already collected in the West 
Virginia Geological Survey, and the logs of the many 
drill-holes made by coal and oil companies ; supplement 
these with as many tests as necessary, and thus determine 
the number of veins and ithe thickness and area of each 
workable vein in each holding. 

3. Acquire each holding, if possible, amicably, by one 
of the three ways proposed, that is, by purchase of the 
land, purchase of the lease, or lease of the lease, at a 
price at which this particular tract is rated in accordance 
with the general principles that have been adopted for 
the entire field. 

Principles Made Use of in Rating the Various Tracts 

1. Making use of the data concerning number, thick- 
ness, and area of each vein, estimate the probable aver- 
age recoverable tonnage from each vein in the tract. When 
the government was selling its coal land in the West it 
estimated the tonnage in, the land in this v/ay, but counited 
only one-fifth to one-third of the result in charging for 
the land. The uncertainty concerning faults and so on 
was reckoned great enough to warrant such reduction. 

2. Fix upon a royalty rate based on distance of the 
tract from the mine through which it is to be operated. 
Thus, if the royalty on coal within one mile of the mine 
is 10 cents a ton, the royalty on coal at two miles dis- 
tant is 9 cents; and so the royalty decreases by one cent 
a ton for every additional mile of distance up to five miles, 
tor coal at a distance of five miles or mor^e the royalty is 
fixed ait 5 cents a ton. 

3. Estimate the number of years it will take to mine 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 51 



each holding when operated along with other coal with 
which it will naturally be mined at the same time. 

4. Having the tonnage in each tract and the number 
of years it will last after operation begins, of course the 
tonnage divided by the num^ber of years will give the 
average number of tons put out each year. 

5. The tonnage put out each year,, multiplied by the 
rated royalty per ton, gives the amount of money the tract 
will yield each year after it begins to operate. That is, 
the holder would realize an annuity of that sum from the 
beginning of operation till the coal is exhausted. 

6. Determine as nearly as possible the number of years 
it will be until operation reaches each tract. 

Having, then, the number of years that will elapse until 
operation begins, the number of years the annuity will 
run, the equitable price per acre is the present worth of 
given annuity beginning at the end of a certain num.ber of 
years and running a given number of years. A single il- 
lustration will suffice : 

Suppose a tract of one hundred acres will be reached 
in operation in t^venty years, and be worked out in twenty 
years, at a uniform rate of operation. Suppose the esti- 
mated tonnage is four thousand tons to the acre, or the 
entire estimated tonnage is four hundred thousand tons. 
Then the average yearly output will be twenty thousand 
tons. 

Suppose the tract is three miles from the mine, and 
therefore the rate royalty is 8 cents a ton. The annuity 
therefore is $1600. Now the present worth of an annuity 
of $1600 to begin in twenty years and continue for twenty 
years is $5280. 

Therefore the proper value of the land in this tract is 
$52.80 an acre. 

How Will the Government Conduct the Mining? 

First. Acquiring navy coal land is not launching a 
scheme to nationalize the coal industry. It is simply con- 
tracting for a coal supply for the United States navv for 



52 COAL 

a number of years, instead of for one or two years. It 
is contracting with a contractor who cannot be out of coal 
when the government calls for the coaL 

It is exercising the same kind of common business 
sense that is being exercised by railroads that are buying 
their coal years ahead by buying the coal in the ground, 
and exercised by steel companies that lease coal land in 
a perpetual lease. 

Second. It will operate its coal land under lease, the 
government taking all the output for its own use or its 
own disposal. There are few industries that require such 
skill in the management as coal mining. Every coal field 
has problem.s that are different from those in every other 
field. Some of the most disastrous failures have come 
from operators and managers from one field carrying the 
methods they used in the field with which they are familiar 
over into the new field, which they do not know. It is a 
common saying in the West, that an operator from the 
East takes two years to find out that he does not know 
how to manage a Western mine. Lessees in this field will 
generally continue to operate government imines under 
strict regulation, helpful co-operation, and suggestion, such 
as I shall outline later. Operators will eventually sell all 
their coal to the government at a profit not too great, but 
which will give them a very delightful change, a steady 
profit instead of their former experience (now a profit, 
now no profit or a loss), no anxiety about finding a buyer, 
and no bad debts. 

How Will the State Be Compensated for Loss of Tax? 

It is a complaint, which has a good deal of force, on 
the part of States in' the West, within whose borders gov- 
ernment-owned lands are located, that these lands are 
leased by the government while the State or the county 
furnishes protection and improvement such as ar6 given to 
privately-owned land, and yet the land is not taxed. The 
complaint would come with greater force, if land that the 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 53 

state now taxes should be taken by ithe Federal govern- 
ment and relieved from taxation. 

Extreme socialists would maintain that coal belongs to 
the whole people rather than to the State. But it seems 
clear that the State should be compensated for the loss of 
tax that it formerly enjoyed. The easiest and most equit- 
ablg way is for the government to pay the State a certain 
royalty on each ton of coal mined, so that the State would 
get as much from the land now owned by the government 
as it received, or would have received, if it had remained 
in private hands. 

Suppose for example, that the land taken by the Fed- 
eral government had been taxed 30 cents an acre, the 
Stale received from three hundred and twenty thousand 
acres taxes to the amount of $96,000. Ilf the output of 
coal for the government use is Jten million tons a year, 
one cent a ton will produce $100,000, or enough and some 
to spare. If the one million six hundred thousand acres 
are bought, and the tax is 30 cents an acre, the total 
amount is $480,000. Five cents a ton will raise the amount, 
if ten million tons are mined. This amount of tax will 
decrease as the coal is depleted. The State will receive 
tax for a longer time than it would under private owner- 
ship, for depletion will not progress so rapidly. 

Is This Purchase a Good Investment? Will it Make 
High Cost for Navy Coal? 

It is a good investment even if it made navy coal cost 
high, which it will not. 

1. If only three hundred and twenty thousand acres 
of the Pocahontas field be bought at $60 an acre, the cost 
will be $19,200,000. 

If, as a first adjustment, one million six hundred thou- 
sand acres be bought at $60 an acre on the average, the 
cost will be $96,000,000. 

A considerable reduction will result from taking over 
leases instead of buying the land outright. This reduction 
might be nearly enough to offset cost of equipment. The 



54 COAL 



larger of these sums is not staggering, ^as we are accus- 
tomed to think in terms of bilHons. 

2. Taking about the average of these two sums, to 
illustrate, $60,000,000, the interest charge at first, at four 
per cent, is $2,400,000 a year. 

H the annual output amounts to fifteen million tons, a 
charge of from 16 cents a ton at the outstart, running down 
to zero when the sinking fund pays off the $60,000,000, 
will suffice. 

3. To provide a sinking fund of $2,000,000 a year, 
exclusive of interest, will require a charge of 14 cents a 
ton on an output of fifteen mfillion tons. 

4. If the cost of mining and upkeep be $2.25 a ton, 
and the operator be allowed a profit of 50 cents a ton, 
the cost at the mouth of the mine will be $2.75 a ton. Add 
to this the 30 cents for interest and sinking fund, and the 
coal will cost $3.05 a ton. 

The interest charge will constantly decrease until it 
becom.es zero. The original cost will be paid by the sink- 
in,^ fund in about thirty years. At that time the only cost 
to the government will be cost of mining, operators' profit, 
and royalty paid to West Virginia. It will cost more to 
mine coal in thirty years than it does now, but the in- 
creased cost will not be greater in government mines than 
in other mines. 

Can anyone imagine the navy buying Pocahontas coal 
m thirt}^ years from, now, if there is any to buy, at three 
or four times $3 a^ ton, if government does not control its 
dissipation ? 

Is the Government Freezing Industry and the People 
for the Sake of the Navy of the Futuref 

It will be objected that coal needed in industry and 
commerce and in the homes, is to be hoarded to the great 
injury of the public. No legitimate industry will be crip- 
pled, no domestic need unsupplied. The Nev/ River field 
was included in our discussion to meet tha't objection. 
In parts of the Pocahontas field, and especially in the New 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 55 

River field, there are veins of coal, other than the Poca- 
hontas coal, which can still be miined commercially. Such 
veins as the Sewell, Fire Creek, and Beckley, are com- 
mercially rated as high as Pocahontas. 

To illustrate the use which can be made of these coals 
to serve the public, and still save the Pocahontas, two 
illustrations may be given : 

1. Coal serving an essential industry. 

The United States Coal and Coke Company, a subsid- 
iary to the United States Steel Company, has leased a 
large area of Pocahontas coal land. The output is sent 
to Gary, Indiana, and Sharon, and mixed with Illinois and 
Pennsylvania coal, and burned in byproduct ovens. If, 
on investigation, it is found that low volatile coal is essen- 
tial to the steel industry, either of two things may be done : 

First. A lease on an area in the New River field 
equal to the area of the leasehold in the Pocahontas field 
may be given in exchange. 

Second. If it is found that New River coal is as good 
navy coal' as Pocahontas, an area equal to that which is 
held by the steel company in the Pocahontas field may be 
set aside in the New River field for navy use, and the steel 
company may continue to operate its own lease. 

2. Expont Coal. 

As a humanitarian act it will be necessary to furnish 
coal to Europe until it can adjust itself to the new condi- 
tions and has time to develop its resources and supply its 
own needs. 

In a short time, fortunately, there will be no need that 
we sell our good coal cheap, in order to furnish foreign 
ships with cargoes, so that their owners may grow rich 
from their exorbitant freight rates. Until such time as 
we can see the folly of sending our good raw coal to for- 
eigners for them to save the gas and coke and sell the 
rest back to us at a manifold price in dyes and drugs, we 



56 COAL 

can export New River coal. Meanwhile Kanawa gas coal. 
Pennsylvania, and other coals may help to warm and re- 
build Europe and continue, as now, to supply our home 
needs. 

Will the League of Nations and the New Era of *Teace 
on Earth and Good Will Toward Men" make battleships 
and navy coal unnecessary? 

Our navy and other ships will never be less than at 
present. Our building programme looks toward a navy 
equal to that of any nation in the world. A year before 
the beginning of the Great War, war between civilized 
nations was declared unthinkable. Warned by past ex- 
perience, no great nation will again be caught napping. 
England and France will have need of greater navies than 
at present, to protect their far-stretching interests. They 
are now arranging mandatories in the Near East, with a 
view to protection from assault from without, and not neg- 
lecting the possible future time when they will again be 
enemies. The wider world that has opened up will demand 
a wider spread of our ships. Our great coast line and 
our island possessions will never need fewer protecting 
ships than now. 

We conclude, therefore, that the United States Gov- 
ernment should at once: 

1. Map out and test the Pocahontas field so as to 
decide how much anc| what part of it is best fitted to fur- 
nish the navy fuel of the future. 

2. xA.cquire this land on terms that are just to both 
owners and the nation. 

3. Adjust the claims of present operators holding 
lease, and operation should be carried on under government 
control. The output should be gradually reduced until it 
is just sufficient for government needs. 



CHAPTER VII ^ 

NAVY COAL IN ALASKA 

Alaska Gives Little Promise of Furnishing Navy Coal — Test 
Made By Bureau of Mines, on Cruiser Maryland— Seven-day 
Test in Port— Fifteen-knot Test at Sea— Twenty-knot Test at 
Sea— -Conclusion : Bering River Coal Is Unsuitable for Navy 
Coal— Test of Washed and Cleaned Coal at Annapolis— Con- 
clusion : Bering River Coal Is Entirely Unsuited for Service 
As a Steam Coal— Three Points Evident in These Tests: (1) 
Pocahontas Coal Was Always the Standard— (2) Pocahontas 
Has Qualities Not Shown By Chemical Tests Which Distin- 
guish it As a Navy Coal— (3) Bering River Coal Will Not Help 
to Relieve Drain on Eastern Coal for Ships. 

Alaska Gives Little Promise of Furnishing Navy Coal 

I proposed above to fortify my staitement that Alaska 
seems unable to relieve the drain upon Eastern coal for 
the use of the navy. High hopes were built upon it. Dur- 
ing the investigation of Secretary Ballinger, the value of 
the Alaska coal w^as very much exaggerated for political 
reasons. Even honest prospectors have been deceived as 
to its value. But at present the value of its coal for use 
in the navy is all that I shall consider. 

In 1913j Congress appropriated a sum of money to 
be "used for the survey and investigation by experimen- 
tal tests of coal in Alaska, for use on board ships of the 
United States navy and vessels of the United States.'* 
The investigation was carried on under the direction of 
the Bureau of Mines. On account of the lateness of the 
season when work was commenced, the investigation was 
confined to the Bering River field. 

R. Y. Williams, mining engineer in the Bureau of 
Mines, who was one of the chiefs in the work, says that 
they proceeded 

to determine whether or not there existed within these coal 
fields workable beds of coal suitable for naval use which might 

57 :: 



58 COAL 



be set aside by the President as a coal reservation for the navy 
department, and from which the navy could obtain thereafter 
a supply of high-grade steaming coal for its needs. 

Again, he says : 

After a thorough investigation of one hundred and fifty 
surface outcrops and twenty-two tunnels, it was decided that 
the coal is prevailingly soft, very much crushed and sheared, 
and that the areas containing coal of a character satisfactory 
for navy purposes were restricted to not more than three 
locations. 

From these they mined and carried to the coast eight 
hundred tons, to be used (in w^hat is the only real test) 
in the furnaces of a navy ship. The Maryland, an armored 
cruiser, of 15,138 tons full-load displacement, was desig- 
nated to make the tests under the f ollow^ing instructions : 

The Bureau desires two complete sets of tests, one to be 
with run-of-mine Pocahontas coal and the other with Bering 
River coal. Each set of tests shall consists of: 

(1) ' An uninterrupted period of not less than seven days in 
port. The auxiliaries shall be the same in both series of tests, 
equal duty to be performed. 

(2) A test at sea with not more than three-fourths boiler 
power and at a speed of fifteen knots an hour. This test to 
last twenty-four hours. 

(3) A test at sea under full boiler power at a speed of twenty 
knots. The test is to last four hours. 

(a) Test in Alaska, 

(!) The Seven Days' Test in Port is summarized as 
f ollow^s : 

Of Pocahontas 94.3 tons were used, and Bering River coal 
for equal duty 136.8 tons. The Bering River coal is only sixty- 
nine per cent as efficient as Pocahontas, Neither screened lump, 
run-of-mine or slack of Bering River coal is equal to Pocahon- 
las for the same duty. 

(2) The twelve hour, three-fourth boiler power fifteen 
knots test. With Pocahontas coal ten boilers out of the 
sixteen were all that were nacded to make fifteen knots 
an hour. With Bering River coal, fourteen boilers were 
tried, but it was found they could not nmke enough steam 
to maintain a speed of fifteen knots an hour, so two more 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 59 



boilers were added. At the beginning of the run forty 
per cent of the coal was lost through the grate bars, as 
•the coal was very slack. There was an accumulation of 
soot and fine ash all through the tubes, and the boilers were 
dirty. Nine ancho^ clamps, four end tubes to casing were 
burned off, one baffle door was warped, and one cast-iron 
block between center four-inch tubes was burned. The 
fires clinkered badly, and great quantities of ash Vv^ere 
produced. The efficiency of Bering River coal Vv^as forty- 
four per cent of Pocahontas. That is, for equal duty of 
fifteen knots an hour, 76.6 tons of Pocahontas were used 
and 173.3 tons of Bering River coal. 

(3) Fotir hours full pozver, forced draft, twenty knot 
test. 

First. Pocahontas. 

The twenty-knot speed was maintained with the greatest 
ease and with little effort on the part of the firemen. There 
was but little ash or clinker and the boilers were fairly clean 
at the end of the run. 

Second. Bering River Coal. 

All boilers were in use, clinkers and ash in excessive quan- 
tities were produced. Every eftort was made to make a speed 
of twenty knots, the firemen working to the point of collapse. 
Constant removal of clinkers was necessary. The average 
speed v/as eighteen and six-tenths knots. 

Comparative results for equal duty, Pocahontas 79 tons, 
Bering River 184.7 tons, or Bering River forty-two and eight- 
tenths per cent as efficient as Pocahontas. 

Their statement is : 

Bering River run-of-mine is unsuitable for use with forced 
draft in naval boilers. 

The report in conclusion is: 

1. The per cent of ash and clinker in Bering River run-of- 
mine is excessive, merely throwing excessive work upon the 
personnel. 

2. More boiler powder had to be used with Bering River 
coal for equal duty. The difference in coal consumption is too 



60 COAL 



great to allow a hope for results with Bering River coal that 
may in any way compare with Pocahontas coal. 

3. Bering River coal is superior to Pocahontas in smokeless 
qualities. 

4. The number of miles that can be steamed with Bering 
River coal with one bunkering is much smaller than with 
Pocahontas — approximately one-half. That is to say, with 
Pocahontas coal the Maryland could steam from San Francisco 
to Yokohama and have three hundred tons in her bunkers, 
while with Bering River coal she could only steam to Honolulu 
and arrive with the same amount in bunkers. 

(b) Test at Annapolis, 

Tests of Washed and Screened Bering River Coal, 
It was contended by some that the Bering River coal had 
not had a chance to show what it could do after proper 
washing and screening plants are erected at ithe mines. 
So a portion of the Bering River coal was sent to the 
United States Engineering Experiment Staition at Annapo- 
lis to be washed and screened until the remainder should 
compare equally with the Pocahontas coal. The Bering 
River coal as mined contained fourteen per cemt ash in 
dry coal and had a heat value of 13.286 B.t.u. Pocahontas 
coal has five and six-tenths per cent ash in dry coal and 
a heat value of 14.786 B.t.u. per pound. In order to pro- 
duce a fuel that was approximately as good chemically as 
Pocahontas, the Bering River coal was washed and cleaned 
until it contained 5.42 per cent of ash and had heat value 
14.844 B.t.u. ; but it required a loss of 49.6 per cent of 
the original coal,^ or one-half of it. 

Afiter a full test of the coal thus prepared, the expert 
report says: 

In spite of all the refinement of cleaning and washing which 
reduced the ash content from fourteen and six-hundredths per 
cent as received to five and forty-two hundredths per cent in 
the dry coal actually fired, involving in the preparation a loss 
of forty-nine and six-tenths per cent of the fuel as mined, 
the highest rate of evaporation was 5.04 pounds of water from 
and at 212*' F. per square foot of water heating surface. Since 
the operationi of the type of boiler on which these tests were 
made to meet full speed conditions in the service, requires 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 61 



evaporation of at least eight pounds per square foot of heating 
surface, it appears that Bering River coal is entirely unsuited 
to the service as a steam coal, and it is not recommended for 
use in standard navy grate bars. 

From the entire report these three things stand out 
clearly : 

(1) That the only kind of coal which was considered 
standard navy coal with which the other coals must be 
compared is Pocahontas. 

(2) That Pocahontas coal has in its constitution 
something which the chemist cannot test, which makes it 
superior to other coals. Even when Bering River coal 
was rendered equal chemically ito Pocahontas, it was found 
to be not at all fitted for navy use under forced draft, 
while Pocahontas coal was a perfect navy coal. The 
twenty-knot test of Bering River coal gave a striking proof 
of what would happen if we were at war, and our ship 
was using even an apparently good coal like the Bering 
River coal, and the enemy ship of the same class was 
using as good navy coal as the Pocahontas. If it wanted 
our ship, it could catch it; if our ship wanted the enemy 
ship, it could not catch it. 

(3) That since Bering River coal is eliminated as a 
supply for our Pacific ships, the Pocahontas and New 
River fields will continue to bear the burden of fueling 
them, and therefore their life will be that much shortened. 
The conclusion is the more confirmed that the United 
States should set a^ide, before it is too late, and reserve 
a large portion of this coal for its future use. 



CHAPTER VIII 

GOVERNMENT OWNED COAL LAND LEASED FOR COMMERCIAL 

PURPOSES 

Maximum Area to One Lessee 2,560 Acres — Railroads Al- 
lowed 2,560 Acres for Each Two Hundred Miles of Main Line 
Within a State, and Mine for Own Use Only — Royalty Minimum 
Five Cents a Ton and Certain Rental — At End of Twenty Years 
a New Lease — Individuals Can Mine for Own Use Without 
Royalty — Municipalities Mine for Domestic Use from Area 
Depending on Population — Dangers of Uncontrolled Mining, 
Especially By Small Companies That Pay No Royalty — Munici- 
palities Ought to Be Required to Build Byproduct Plant. 

For the present the United States government has with- 
drawn its coal land from sale and inaugurated a new 
leasing system. The principal provisions embodied in the 
leasing law recently enacted by Congress are briefly as fol- 
lows : 

(1) The control of the leasing is under the Secretary 
01 the Interior. 

(2) The maximum area leased to one lessee is two 
thousand, live hundred and sixty acres. 

(3) "No company or corporation operating a common 
carrier railroad shall be given or hold a lease for any coal 
deposits except for its own use for railroad purposes, and 
no such company or corporation shall receive or hold more 
than one lease for each two hundred miles of its railroad 
line within the state, and exclusive of spurs or switches, 
and exclusive of parts of the railroad operated mainly by 
power produced otherwise than by steam." 

(4) The lessee shall pay to the United States, a 
royalty not less than five cents a ton, and an annual ren- 
tal not less than twenty-five cents an acre for the first 
year, not less than fifty cents an acre for the second, third, 
fourth and fifth years, and not less than one dollar an 
acre for each year thereafter; this rental is credited against 
the royalty for that year. 

62 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 63 



This rental is intended as a minimum royalty. Thus, 
if the lease is not operated during any year after the fifth, 
the lessee must pay the government $2560 on a two thou- 
sand five hundred and sixty acre lease. But if it is oper- 
ated so that the royalty amounts to $2560, then there is 
no rental to pay. 

(5) At the end of twenty years, the Secretary may 
make "such adjustment of terms and conditions as he 
sees fit." 

(6y Individuals, or associations of individuals, may 
be granted the privilege of mining coal for their own use 
without royalty. 

(7) This privilege shall not extend to corporations. 

(8) To municipal corporations the right may be given 
to ^'prospect for, mine and take not to exceed three hun- 
dred and twenty acres for a municipality of less than 
one thousand population; and not to exceed twelve 
hundred and eighty for a municipality of not less than 
one hundred thousand and not more than one hundred 
and fifty thousand population; and not to exceed two 
thousand, five hundred and sixty acres for a municipality 
of one hundred and fifty thousand population or more. 
Upon condition that such municipal corporations will mine 
the coal therein under proper conditions and dispose of 
the same without profit to residents of such municipality, 
for domestic use." 

Concerning the terms of the leases, it may be said : 
(1) The control naturally goes to the Departm.ent of 
the Interior, if we are not to have a Department of Min- 
ing. It is well enough, providing it is a real control not 
only of the leasing but also of the operating to the extent 
that such control may conserve the coal. 

The chances are all against such control. In the first 
place, it has never been exercised anywhere else, why 
should it be exercised out away from the places where con- 
servation seemed most necessary. In the second place, 
the chances are greatly against the Secretary's knowing 
what proper regulation of mining means. 



64 COAL 



Taken, — as is generally the case, — from a profession or 
business that does not require any knowledge of the coal 
business, and thrust into a position in which myriads of 
interests confront him, he may well feel that, if it is re- 
ported to him that a lease has been made, that settles the 
matter at least for twenty years. 

(2) Limiting a railroad lease in area and to mining 
for its own use is a wise provision. But if the mining of 
TSiilro^d-owned land needs control, much more does the 
mining of leased land by a railroad need it. 

(3) The provision authorizing readjustment of terms 
and conditions at the end of twenty years may invite 
mining of "easy" coal. If an operator has a lease of two 
thousand five hundred and sixty acres, each acre contain- 
ing five thousand tons of coal, and if he mines one thousand 
tons a day for two hundred days each year, his lease will 
last sixty- four years. 

He does noit know what new terms and conditions may 
be imposed at the end of twenty years. So he plays it 
safe by mining as much coal as possible, and at the least 
possible cost, if he is not controlled. 

(4) The granting to an individual the right ito mine 
for his own use, without payment of royalty, is a very 
dangerous provision, if conservation is important. Such 
scattered operations could not be properly controlled, even 
if it were the duty of some one to do it. What that kind of 
mining leads to is illustrated by v/hat it did lead tto in 
the early days of anthracite mining and in such fields as 
the George's Creek field in Maryland. Holes were opened 
on the outcrop of a vein. Coal was dug or gouged out 
until water became troublesome, or ventilation became bad. 
The hole was abandoned and a new hole dug. The result 
w^as, of course, that the fallen roof made it almost impos- 
sible to reopen the vein at the same place. It a drift is 
opened at another place, there is constant danger of the 
water that is pent up in those abandoned holes breaking 
through and flooding the new mines and drowning the 
men. That kind of disaster has happened. One cannot 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR lONTROL 65 

help wondering why groups of irresponsible persons should 
be allowed to mine for their own use, while the same 
group organized and responsible cannot mine for their 
own use. 

(5) The provision allowing municipalities to hold and 
mine coal land is not so dangerous as leasing to individuals. 
It is easier to subject 'these operations to regulation. But 
it hardly seems fair to lease to a private company or cor- 
poration a tract of land at a royalty, and then take its 
market from it, — or a large part of its market, — by allow 
ing cities to mine their own coal, for which they pay no 
royalty, and which they sell to their citizens at no profit 
to the city. The only way the competing company can get 
any of the domestic business is by mining '^easier" coal 
than the city is mining. 

If this provision had attached to it the condition that 
municipalities granted such a free lease should burn the 
coal in byproduct ovens and sell to the citizens gas and 
coke for domestic use, it would have been admirable for 
the city. It would conserve coal and also be a source of 
revenue to the city from the byproducts. It could save 
gasoline by use of benzol, and furnish sulphate of am- 
monia to its citizens to fertilize their gardens. 

By the control which is suggested here is meant the 
control that I later suggest for all the coal fields, both 
East and West. 



CHAPTER IX 

COAL LAND IN THE HANDS OF PRIVATE OWNERS 

Three Parties to Be Dealt With— States Should Co-operate 
in Conservation — Coal Is a Large Part of the Basis of Their 
Prosperity — United States Does Now Reach Across State Boun- 
daries and Controls Their Citizens— Coal More Important Than 
Railroads — Owners Want Relief from Monopoly of Labor and 
Restrictive Hostile Legislation — Railroads and Steel Companies 
Should Own Some Land, But Not Mine Commercial Coal. 

If the United States now owned the coal land and 
were starting its coal policy all over again, it would not 
sell any of the coal with the surface. Its present policy 
in dealing with its Western coal land shows that. If it 
had retained title to the coal, and had it operated under 
the regulations and restrictions we are now advocating, 
billions of tons of our best! coal, which are now hopelessly 
lost, would have been saved. We can truly say that it 
could have been done, but we can as truly say that it 
v/ould not have been done, — and that is the discouraging 
thought. The government in the leasing policy that it is 
now launching, as far as appearances indicate, is just 
moving on in the same old prodigal way. It is easy to 
sum up the shortcomings of our predecessors and condemn 
them for waste of our heritage, and by implication say 
what vve would have done. It is a safe pastime to scold 
the shades of our ancestors for their sins. 

However much it may relieve our feelings to berate 
the coal industry of the past, it will not fill the bins of 
our descendants. Will they summon our shades to the 
bar of judgment and convict us of like failure to rem.edy 
the evils which we see more clearly than they did? Wise 
and earnest coal men in convention and at banquets make 
speeches pointing out conditions that ought to be changed 
and suggesting remedies. Then they eat their banquet 
dinner and feel that they have done their best in pointing 

66 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 67 

out the evils, or they lean back and say: ''No man can 
reform a great industry in which so many people have to 
be consulted and satisfied, — then, there are Labor and the 
General Government." 

The problem is not easy: vested rights, rights of pri- 
vate property. A man's coal mine is his castle. 

The American people have been brought up on these 
principles. But hard as it ma}^ seem, resist if we choose, 
control of some kind is coming. If a well-thought-out 
way, devised by the wisest of those most vitally interested, 
is not the outcome, then an ill-thought-out way, devised 
by ignorance and selfishness, will come. 

There are three parties to be dealt with in the treat- 
ment of the subject. 

1, The States in Which the Coal Land Is Situated 

?)'tates are naturally and properly jealous of any in- 
frin'jement of their prerogatives. They are quick to re- 
sent any action by the Federal government, which seems 
to control their citizens to their disadvantage, for the sake 
of advantage to the citizens of other States. The Congress 
in he recent law authorizing the Secretary of the Interior 
to lease the Western coal land, recognized States' rights 
in the proviso. 

Provided, That nothing in this act shall be construed or 
held to affect the rights of the States or other local authority 
to exercise any rights which they may have, including the 
right to levy and collect taxes upon improvements, output of 
mines, or other rights, property, or assets of any lessee of 
the United States. 

But the coal States are the States that are benefited 
more than any others by any policy which prolongs the 
life of their coal fields. The coal industry is the basis of 
a large part of their wealth and prosperity. The coal in- 
terest of each State is closely related to the coal interest 
of every other State, whether that State is seller or buyer 
of coal. 



68 COAL 

President Roosevelt, as long as May, 1908, called the 
Governors of all the States into conference, with a view 
to a concerted action toward conserving our natural re- 
sources. 

He felt that it was a great subject which affected every 
state, and that it is the duty of all the states to co-operate 
with each other and with the Federal government in con- 
serving and properly using our natural resources. 

2. The Federal Government Interest 

The Federal government represents the whole people. 
It must act in a constitutional way but it must act, if any 
vital interest that concerns the whole people is involved. 
It is incumbent upon it to find a way, — a just but effective 
way. We have come more and more to realize that we 
are a nation, — a just and righteous nation but a vigorous 
one. When we were at war the whole people were at war. 
I^ did not need that any State should declare war. Every 
resource that was useful for the government was taken 
anywhere, in its own way. State lines are not Chinese 
walls, to shut in a commodity which is needed in another 
State. No tariff wall separates State from State. The 
general government reaches out into the States and col- 
lects internal revenue tax, income tax, and excess profits 
tax. 

It thus takes from a citizen of a State what he claims 
to own, the product of his farm, or factory, or mine, pro- 
duced by his own toil or skill. Railroads chartered by 
the States engaged in interstate commerce are held to be 
doing a business so vital to the whole people, that they are 
performing a Federal government function. When re- 
turned to private ownership after they had been taken 
over by the government, they were given back in a co- 
ordinated form different from their original form. They 
have the wages of their employes fixed, they have their 
freight and passenger rates fixed.} the income for! six 
months guaranteed, the amount of dividend on their stock 
is limited, and a portion of their earnings is taken from 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 69 

the prosperous roads and given to the weak roads, or to 
the general government. 

Fuel (of which coal is chief) is, if possible, more im- 
portant than railroads, and deserving of as much consid- 
eration. A railroad, if destroyed, may be built again, but 
coal destroyed can never be renewed. The destruction of 
all our railroads would be by no means as disastrous as 
the loss of all our coal. 

3. Owners and Operators of the Mines and Coal Lands 

Operators have for years been hoping for some help- 
ful aid that may bring order out of the chaos of the past. 
Any operator who says : 'Things are all right ; just let 
us alone,'' is to be suspected. Operators and owners of 
mines long for the time and the way in which they can 
earn a reasonable profit on their investments of money, 
work, and brains. They wonder if the time will come 
when they may escape the crushing between the nether 
and upper millstones of union labor and legislation. 

First. The Nether Millstone of a Monopoly of Labor. 

In several states, and a large part of others, the opera- 
tor cannot employ any other than union labor. If a non- 
union man is employed all the union men will quit. And 
not only will they quit but they will do all in their power, 
even to the extent of the use of violence^ to prevent any 
others from working. Having a monopoly of labor, they 
are able to enforce their own terms as to wages and time 
of work. Every new scale is an occasion for a strike or 
an advance in wages and more burdensome concessions. 
Unless the operator can sell his coal at such advance in 
price as to cover the added cost, the new costs eat up his 
already too narrow margin, and often bring serious loss. 

Second. The Upper Millstone of Legislation. 

L State legislation to perpetuate union control of 
labor. 

In Illinois it is unlawful for any man to engage in 
practical mining unless he has had two years' experience 
in the mines of the State, and has a certificate from a com- 



70 COAL 

mission made up largely of practical miners, and of course 
union miners. It is evident that none but union men can 
get a certificate. No other could have acquired the ex- 
perience demanded. It would do a non-union man no 
good to have a certificate, as he would not be allowed to 
work anyway as non-union. It seems, also, that the law 
is^ so framed as to shut out skilled men from other States 
who would be willing to work during a strike, as they 
have not had two years' experience in Illinois and have 
not its certificate. 

2. State legislation requiring operators to pay shot- 
firers to provide washhouses, to pay workmen's compen- 
sation. 

These are proper laws, but add to the cost of produc- 
tion. It is rendered harder to increase selling price to 
cover these increases in cost of production by such federal 
laws as : 

3. Sherman Anti-Trust Law. This law is a constant 
menace to operators who even think of agreeing on a price 
that will pay a profit, or limiting production to actual de- 
mand, or setting up a common selling agency so as to re- 
duce selling expense. 

4. Federal legislation compelling railroads to accept 
switches to new mines and pay for the switches indirectly, 
even when it is known that no new mine is needed and 
that its output will be just so much added to the already 
overproduction and so much more to ruinous competition. 
Thus there has been constant increase in cost of produc- 
tion and constant restraint, and constant fierce competi- 
tion that prevents the operator from covering his new costs 
by advance in selling price. 

Third. Attitude of Operators Toward Helpful Federal 
Control. 

The attitude of operators toward proper government 
help in correcting present chaotic conditions is well ex- 
pressed by George H. Cushing, in a recent speech on 
"Federal Control." 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 71 



The following are some extracts: 

I have a keen recollection that throughout all the years I 
have been associated with the coal^ industry, there has been a 
constant demand that the federal authorities extend some 
extraordinary protection and aid to coal. Since we have en- 
dured a^year and a half of government regulation, many coal 
men say now that they were mistaken all the while. Rather 
than its being true that coal men have reversed themselves 
after this experience with the fuel administration, they stand 
where they always stood. They need, they want, and they 
must have help. Our objection is not to Federal or government 
interest in the coal business. It is wholly to the objectionable 
manner in which that interest expressed itself. What coal 
men have really wanted through all these years was that 
competition in coal should be made comparable to the com- 
petition in other commodities. It has never been that, it is 
not that now. The producer in steel has to compete only with 
those who can get their portion of the limited supply of iron 
ore. The producer of shoes has to compete only with those 
who can get their portion of the fixed supply of leather. Even 
the producer of clothing has to compete only with those who 
can get a portion of this year's crop of flax, wool or cotton. 
The producer of coal has to compete not alone with those 
plants already organized, but with all those who can at any 
moment open coal mines into the supply of coal that is avail- 
able for the human race for all time. In this respect com- 
petition in coal is not comparable to the competition in any 
other line of business. I believe we can safely say that — 
by legislative action if necessary — we as a people should set 
out to hold the reserve coal land until it is needed. Thus 
would the competition in coal be made comparable to that in 
other lines of business. Whether we wish to recognize the 
fact or not, it remains true that coal has, in public opinion, 
been classified as being among the public utilities, concerning 
the affairs of which the people themselves are going to have 
a word to say. It must be for some one to think out and 
suggest the proper line of co-operative action as between the 
industry and the government. 

We have '^thought out" a line of action in reference 
to the semi-bituminous or navy coal in West Virginia, 
and there remains the rest of the great bituminous field. 
Especially are we now considering the coal lands in Penn- 
sylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, West Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. 



72 COAL 



If we neglect the fact that these lands are in the 
various States, and assume that a way can be found by 
which ithe States and the Federal government will co- 
operate in full accord, we have to deal as a unit with four 
classesl of owners; (1) Railroad owners of coal land; (2) 
corporations engaged in manufacturing essentials that 
bought coal lands from which »they are getting their pres- 
ent supply and which assures them of a supply for an 
estimated time in the future; (3) corporations mining 
commercial coal either from their own or leased land ; 
(4) individual owners, including those who have bought 
land and are holding it en bloc, as well as farm owners. 

Coal Land Owned By Railroads 

Railroads should not be permitted to operate a com- 
mercial mine. 

There is very considerable opposition to railroads own- 
ing any coal land at all. This^ opposition has been created 
and fostered by railroads owning commercial mines and 
the oppressive use they have made of the mines. When 
Congress started on its drive to correct the abuses charged 
against the railroads, they fixed upon giving of rebates 
and rate discrimination. This was bad enough, but not 
nearly so bad as discrimination in car supply. This was 
a form of oppression that it was impossible fully to de- 
stroy. The various State commissions and the United 
States Commerce Commission tried to remedy it. They 
ruled that a railroad should furnish cars to each mine 
on its line in proportion to its rated output. 

But when times were dull, prices low, and there was 
little demand, the tracks of the independent mines were 
filled with cars they could not use, or which took them 
a long time to use. Then, when demand was great and 
prices high, the independent mines had no cars, or cars 
for only part of a day. They were told they had been 
furnished their quota. The cost of what they did produce 
was high and could not be sold at a profit. The railroad 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 73 

owned mines were supplied with all the cars they could use. 

The effect was twofold : 

First. The railroad coal had the market to itself when 
prices were high and the mines made money. 

Second. The independent mines were idle when prices 
w^ere high, and losing money when prices were low, and 
were forced into bankruptcy, and bought by the only com- 
pany that could risk the purchase, that is, by the railroad, 
and that at a ruinously low price. So strong became the 
complaint of the abuse that the roads made of their right 
to sell coal in the market that Congress passed a law which, 
it was supposed, would fully cure the abuse. 

It allowed railroads to own coal land and mines, but 
it forbade them to haul coal owned by them except for 
their own use. But this is practically evaded by the rail- 
road's selling its coal to a company owned by itself. It 
amounts to the railroad's owning the coal just before it 
starts on its journey, not owning it while on its wa)^ and 
then owning it when its journey is over. 

A railroad that mines commercial coal and sells even 
indirectly in the market has the ability, and it is charged 
exercises it, of doing two wrongs. 

(1) Use its commercial coal to compel operators to 
sell coal to the railroad even below the cost of production. 
Thus, if the coal land of the railroad is at one end of its 
line and its output is not enough to meet the railroad's re- 
quirement, or it prefers to buy the coal it needs at the 
other end of its line, instead of mining its own coal and 
hauling it to the other end of its line, it ofifers to buy 
coal at a very low price. If the operator does not accept 
its offer, it ships its coal (through the agency of its sub- 
sidiary company), sells it in the market at the low price, 
breaks the market, and buys its year's supply at its own 
price. It indemnifies itself, of course, for any small loss 
it suffered by getting a year's supply at a bargain. 

(2) Using its coal to force sale to itself of a desirable 



/ 4 COAL 

mine by indirection. The railroad wants to own a certain 
valuable mine on its line. It contracts for and buys its 
entire output at a fair price. As soon as the former cus- 
tomers of this mine have made contracts with other com- 
panies for their supply, the railroad suddenly ceases to 
take any coal from the mine from which it had been tak- 
ing its entire output. The mine is left without customers 
for its coal. The condition of the company owning the 
mine is known beforehand by the railroad, and the occa- 
sion shrewdly timed. The company is forced into bank- 
ruptcy, or is forced to sell to the railroad at its own price. 
(3) It is good policy for a railroad to own coal land. 

Railroads are essential to the business, almost to the 
Hfe, of a nation. Coal is essential to the life of the major- 
ity of the railroads now, and to all of^ them in the long 
run. It is, therefore, dangerous for a railroad to be com- 
pelled to stand helplessly still and see all the coal on its 
line, or in its immediate vicinity, mined and sold. It ought 
to be able to own an area of coal land sufficient for its 
future supply for a reasonable time. While this is true, 
the extent of that ownership and its use must be regu- 
lated by some authority, as by the Interstate Commerce 
Commission. This control should be directed to three 
things : 

(1) The railroad shall not by its lessees, or directly, 
or through a subsidiary company, sell coal in the market. 
This might not preclude different roads from exchanging 
coal that may in certain events be more convenient and 
reduce a length of haul. 

(2) The railroad shall not own a larger area of coal 
land than is its proper proportion in the field in which the 
road is located. That is, the railroad shall not buy so as 
to menace the coal supply of the zone for other legitimate 
uses, such as for domestic use. And it must not own land 
held purely for speculation. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 75 

(3) Its coal should be mined under the same control 
as that described later as applying to all coal lands in that 
field. 

Corporations Which Make Essentials and Which Secure 
a Future Supply By Buying Coal Land 

Such corporations as the United States Steel Company 
and the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company are buying 
large areas of coal land. The United States Steel Company 
has large areas in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Indiana. 
It has large areas in West Virginia, which it has leased 
and is operating by a subsidiary company. Little can be 
said against the use it is making of its coal. It is taking 
it to Gary, Indiana, and mixing it with a sturdier coal 
from Western Pennsylvania and Illinois, to make coke, 
and is saving byproducts of sulphate of ammonia, benzol, 
toluol and gas. The West Virginia coal it is using be- 
longs to the Pocahontas field, and is included in the navy 
coal reservation. We have already said that the navy 
reservation is made large so that reasonable exchange 
may be arranged after careful consideration of the whole 
field. Steel is necessary for railroads. They must have 
steel rails, steel cars, steel bridges, and steel for station 
construction. Not every coal is good coking coal. The 
coking coals are being depleted, to be burned in various 
uses for which a non-coking coal is almost, or quite, as sat- 
isfactory. So it seems that steel companies are wise in 
securing and holding a proper area of coal for future 
use. Steel companies ought not to be allowed to mine 
coal for any other than their own use. 

Strong steel companies will not have any disposition 
to mine coal for sale, in general, but, if so disposed, they 
might sell their coal for a time at^ a low price, in order to 
break the price of coal that they want to buy, either to 
supplement their own output or to save depletion of their 
own coal land. Of course they can recoup even a tem- 
porary loss on their coal sold in the low price which they 
get on the large amount they buy. Their land should, 



76 COAL 



of course, be subject to the same regulation as to methods 
of mining as we propose for all other coal. Neither ought 
steel companies to be allowed to own an area of coal 
which is out of proportion to the area of coal needed for 
domestic uses. 

Corporations Which Operate Mines for Comfnercial 

Sale 

These are operated either by their owners or under 
lease. After deducting the Pocahontas and New River 
field, the anthracite field, railroad owned land, steel com- 
pany land, there remains a large area owned or operated 
by corporations, or that is in the hands of private owners. 

We have seen that there has been great waste in min- 
ing and using coal in the past and that some of the same 
conditions as before are returning. We believe that the 
people demand some change in the management of this 
essential held in trust for them. The industry is appeal- 
ing to the government for relief and some helpful control. 
The operators and owners will welcome a wise solution 
which will stabilize their business. 



CHAPTER X 

TO WHAT DEPARTMENT DOES MINING BELONG? 

Secretary of Mining and Transportation Desirable — Both 
Need a Friend at Court : Coal Needs Protection from Railroads 
— Coal and Railroads Co-operate in Zoning — If not a Secretary, 
Then Federal Commissioner of Mining — Divide Coal Field 
Into Districts — Inspect Each Mine and File Records — Use the 
Records in Fixing Zones, Prices — Help to Be Given to High 
Cost Mines, in Compelling Com^plete Recovery of Coal. 

First. Shall There Be a Secretary of Mining and 
Transportation? 

Many believe that the great coal industry is entitled to 
a Cabinet Secretary. Labor has its Secretary, Agriculture 
has its Secretary, surely Coal Mining is of enough impor- 
tance and is enough in need of government care to be 
given a Secretary. 

If coal mining is to be joined with any other industr}^ 
its logical mate is transportation. Other industries, as 
agriculture and manufacturing, furnish freight to the rail- 
roads, but coal not only furnishes a very important part 
of their freight, but supplies the fuel which drives the 
engines and trains. 

1. Coal Mining Needs a Friend At Court 

'^Transportation needs a friend at Court," was the sum- 
ming up of the vigorous argument made recently by Rob- 
ert S. Lovitt, President of the Union Pacific System, in 
favor of a Secretary of Transportation. Most assuredly 
coal can join him in a like plea. A considerable part of 
his arraignment of railroad* conditions can be endorsed by 
coal men, if we substitute ''coal" for "railroad." He says : 

Than the railroad business none is more vital to the very 
life of the nation, yet neither in the President's Cabinet nor 
anywhere in the vast machinery constituting the Government 

77 



78 COAL 



of the United States, is there an officer of any kind or descrip- 
tion whose duty it is to look after its interest, to defend it, 
to speak for it, or to say a word for Justice in its behalf. Run- 
ning through the statutes of the books of Congress, there is a 
purpose to curb and repress, unrelieved by helpful, constructive, 
encouraging provision. 

2. Advantages Arising from Joint Control of Coal and 
Transportation 

(a) Protection of coal from railroads. Railroads con- 
sume part of the output of the mines. In the past rail- 
roads have taken advantage of their control of car supply 
and of the desire of a coal company to have a steady 
custorner in a railroad, in order to beat down the price 
of their contract coal. Railroads have often bought their 
coal belov^ the cost of production. The danger of having 
divided control was illustrated when railroads were un- 
der Federal control. The Railroad Administrator tried to 
force coal companies to sell railroad coal at a lower price 
than other consumers had to pay, in order that the rail- 
roads might show lov/ operating cost. If he had succeeded, 
the coal companies would have been ruined, or they must 
sell coal to the other consumers at a price greater than a 
fair price, in order to cover loss on the coal furnished to 
the railroads. 

(b) Co-operation in storing coal. Later I outline a 
plan for making coal a less seasonal industry. To this end, 
the co-operation of coal companies and railroads is essen- 
tial. 

(c) Co-operation in zoning the coal industry. If coal 
mining is to be zoned, railroads must confine the freight 
in coal to the zone in which it originates, except the spe- 
cial cases in which crosshauling is allowed. In short, if 
a controlling force, friendly to both railroads and coal, 
regulated both, more uniform mining conditions would be 
promoted, much of this complaint and recrimination, es- 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 79 

pecially about car service, which is constantly heard now, 
would cease. 

Second. A Federal Commissioner of Mining in the In- 
terior Department 

Coal mining is itself broad enough and complex enough 
10 require the care of a department. 

Transportation might well be under a department. But 
railroads are now under the Secretary of the Interior, 
and part of the coal is under the same department. 

In determining what can be done, or ought to be done 
w^hen the rest^ of the coal land is brought under control of 
that department, we shall have to be guided partly by 
what has been done with other subjects brought under the 
same regulation. We can get some hints in what has been 
done in setting up machinery for railroad regulation in 
regulating coal leasing, and the survey of the public lands 
law establishing Federal Control of coal in the United 
States. A skeleton of such lav/ miay be outlined as follows : 

1. There shall be established in the Department of the 
Interior an office to be denominated The Federal Mining 
Bureau, whose duty it shall be, under the direction of the 
head of the department, to superintend, execute, and per- 
form all acts and things touching the mining and using 
of coal as are now directed by this law, or v/hich hereafter 
shall be assigned to the said Bureau. 

2. The executive duties of said Bureau shall be vested 
in the Federal Commissioner of Mining, who shall be ap- 
pointed by the President, by and with consent of the 
Senate. 

3. The Commissioner shall divide the entire coal-min- 
ing fields of the United States into Districts. Each District 
shall, as nearly as possible, consist of a single coal-mining 
State. 

In each District shall be established an office, situated 
as nearly central as possible, preferably in the capital of 
the State which constitutes the District. 



80 COAL 



4. An Assistant Commissioner shall be appointed by 
the President, with consent of the Senate, for each Sub- 
District. He shall be charged with the executive duties of 
the district to which he is appointed. 

5. In the District office shall be employed such clerks 
and other employees as the Assistant Commissioner shall 
find necessary for the proper conduct of the business relat- 
ing to the district. There shall be kept in this office all 
the reports of the Inspectors, maps of the various mines, 
and such other records as are made for the proper dis- 
charge of the duties of the office. 

These records are solely for the use of the Commis- 
sioner in making his rulings, and are not open to general 
inspection in such way as to advertise either the favorable 
or adverse condition of any mine. Of course, each mine 
record is open to the Officers of their own mine. 

6. Inspectors shall be appointed by the Commissioner. 
They shall be men familiar with mines and mining, espe- 
cially in the district in which they are to act. They shall 
be mining engineers who have been trained and fitted both 
by education and experience in the mining industry, or 
superintendents of experience who have had such training 
as will fit them for the duty required. These Inspectors 
shall be sworn offxers of the government, and shall also 
certify every return under oath. 

7. Duties of Inspectors. As rapidly as possible, each 
mining operation in each district shall be thoroughly in- 
spected, especially with reference to these facts: (1) 
Present and prospective percentage of recovery. What 
coal is being left at top or bottom; what amount of pillars 

-are being left undrawn, without any intention of recover- 
ing the coal. What coal along abandoned limits of the 
acreage is being unwon. (2) How much and what part 
of the lost coal might be recovered. (3) Estimated cost 
of recovering any coal that is now being abandoned, com- 
pared with the normal cost in the same mine. 

8. Other Data to be Secured, (a) Actual capacity 
output for each mine in the district. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 81 

(b) If possible, actual outupt of each mine for as 
many years as it has been operated. 

(c) Cause of the low or high proportion of actual out- 
put to capacity output. 

(d) Map showing location of each mine and its record. 

(e) Cost of production in each mine, if possible. 

(f) Consumption of coal in each portion of the district. 
The principal uses to be made of these data are : 

(a) Cost of recovery of any coal which is being lost 
because it costs too much to win it, is estimated for use 
in a plan of government help in such recovery. 

(b) Location of mines and location of consumption and 
actual output will be used as a guide in decermining bounds 
of zones. 

(c), Capacity of mines will be used to determine when 
any new mines may be needed. 

(d) Cost of production may be used in fixing selling 
prices. 

Having now a Federal Mining Bureau, charged with 
the duty of collecting information and data concerning the 
coal industry, and making use of such information in 
encouraging, helpings regulating, and restraining where 
necessary, vv^e must next consider some things which ought 
to be done for each of the classes of coal land. 

(1) Coal land operated for the government for its 
exclusive use. 

(2) Coal land owned by the government and leased for 
commercial use. 

(3) Coal land held by prh^ate owners, which needs 
regulation in mining coal and using coal after it is mined. 

(4) Coal land held by private owners, which does not 
need regulation in mining but probably in selling-price of 
coal. 



CHAPTER XI 

HOW THE BUREAU OF MINING WILL CONTROL THE MINING 

INDUSTRY 

Coal Land Operated for Government Use Exclusively— 
Leaseholders — Majority of Going Mines Are Leased — Buy 
Lease and Equipment — Buy Coal Land Continue the Lease — 
Lease the Lease — Coal Land Not Now Operated — Buy and 
— Hold Until Needed, Then Lease — Coal Land Owned By the 
United States and Leased for General Market Coal Land Held 
By Private Owners — Stop Avoidable Waste — ^Prevent Opening 
of New Mines Until Needed — Zoning the Coal Area — Objec- 
tions to Zoning — Industries Dependent on Coal Outside of 
Zone — Furnaces Adapted to Outside Coal — Operators Lose Out- 
side Customers — Advantages of Zoning — Reduction in Freight 
Cost — Protect One Zone from Surplus in Other Zones — Better 
Car Supply — Centralized Selling and Distributing Agencies — 
Advantages : Reduced Selling Cost — Better Distribution of Or- 
ders — Price Fixing in Zones, Difficulty — ^Protect High-Coist 
Mines and Still Not Give Low-Cost Mines Excessive Profits — 
Government Help to High-Cost Mines — Objection to Subsidy — 
How Money for Bonus Will Be Raised — Seasonal Character of 
Coal Mining—Hardship to Operators — Hardship to Mine Labor 
—Increases Car Shortage in Winter — How Partially Cure Sea- 
sonal Character — Voluntary Co-operation of Consumers in 
Storing in Summer — Coercion on Certain Other Consumers — 
Railroads, Preferred Industries, Federal, State, and Municipal 
Concerns Required to Store in Summer Two Months' Winter 
Supply More Than at Present — Reduces Output from Novem- 
ber 1st to April 1st By Forty Million Tons, Increases Output 
in Sum.mer By Forty Million Tons — Makes Possible Reduction- 
of Mine Labor Twenty Per Cent — Reduce Exports to Lowest 
Possible Limits — Export While there Is Need to Prevent Suf- 
fering — Reduce Canadian Export to Exchange — Foreign Nations 
Soon Not Need Our Coal — We Sell Our Best Coal and Buy 
Back Its Valuable Contents — We Sell Our Navy Coal and 
Reduce Our Navy to Second Class. 

First. Coal land operated for Government use ex- 
clusively 

The *^Navy" coal land is now neither owned nor con- 
trolled by the United States. To acquire this coal land 

82 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 83 

will require an Act of Congress, either authorizing the 
Secretary of the Interior to acquire these lands in such 
manner as he finds best, or in such way as the Congress 
will prescribe. 

The Secretary of the Interior will refer the matter to 
the Federal Bureau of Mining for information upon which 
to act. There will be two classes of owners to be dealt 
with: 

1. Leaseholders. A great majority of going mines are 
being operated under lease. Every leasehold will be thor- 
oughly examined by the expert inspectors to determine its 
value and whether it is being operated in a way to meet 
the government requirements, and if not, what change in 
equipment and method must be made to start it to mining 
according to that requirement, and the immediate cost of 
that change. 

After the examination, the government cannot retire 
and refuse to take the lease as an ordinary buyer might. 
The government must have control of all the coal. 

The government representative may proceed to do one 
of three things. 1st. Buy the lease and equipment, if the 
lessee wants to sell or is not a proper person to continue 
the lease. 2nd. Buy the coal land and continue the lease 
under Government control, with exclusive use of the out- 
put. 3rd. Lease the lease. That is, the lessee continues 
to operate the lease, but binds himself to operate under gov- 
ernment regulation, — the coal to be exclusively for govern- 
ment use or government disposal. 

The capacity of the mines now opened exceeds govern- 
ment needs, or soon will, since commercial coal will gradu- 
ally cease to be mined. This fact may necessitate tempo- 
rary closing of some mines. Other mines may be aban- 
doned because they are not well located, and the territory 
may be better mined from another location. Such cases 
should be dealt with justly, — indeed, generously. Some dis- 
appointment to operators will be caused, and some resent- 
ment. The vital importance to the government is the 
only justification for some things that will be done. Hence, 



84 COAL 

the parties concerned should receive full compensation. 
Cases of hardship, however, will be rare. 

2. Coal land not being operated but reserved. Navy 
coal land not under lease will be bought as explained in a 
previous chapter, then outlined into units, each of which 
can be best mined as a single operation. For some tim.e 
few or none of these will be needed for operation. When 
the time comes for offering a unit for lease, it is let to 
the best bidders. It is not so much, if at all, a bidding 
in amount of royalty, but a bidding by the essential offer 
of experience and training, of skill and character, and 
financial strength, which will enable him to conform to 
the strict Government requirements of equipment and 
m_ethod, which will conserve both life and coaL 

The coal is so valuable that, as nearly as possible, com- 
plete recovery should be attained. Economy in cost of 
production, and mining done with all possible skill to 
that end, is desired, but the maximum recovery is a para- 
mount consideration. 

Second. Coal land ozvned by the United States and leased 
for Commercial Mining 

The present method of leasing has been already given. 
The lessees should be regulated by the Federal Commis- 
sioner of Mining, as we have outlined that control for 
land in private ownership. Provisions should be inserted 
in each lea.se securing complete, helpful regulation by the 
Bureau of Mining. This regulation may be made the 
more complete and helpful as the government has now 
a free hand, and should be able to em.body all suggestions 
that experience has taught us. 

Third. Coal land held by private ozvners 

Som.e of the reforms which The Federal Bureau of 
Mining will introduce, or some ends tov/ard v/hich it Vv^ill 
work^ are as follows : 

1. Stop useless and avoidable waste in mining. The 

inspectors reports show that certain mines are leaving coal 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 85 

at the top or bottom of the vein, that pillars are undrawn 
without intention of final recovery. 

If the report shows that recovery of the coal that is 
being left is absolutely impossible, then nothing farther 
can be done. 

If the reports shows that the coal can be recovered, 
then it must be recovered. 

If the report show^s that a mine is to be abandoned, 
the company must be required first to get a certificate from 
the Commissioner authorizing such abandonment. Such 
certificate will not be given until inspectors report that ail 
recoverable coal in the mines and at the outskirts of the 
company's holdings has been taken out. 

If the reports of inspectors show that winning such 
coal will increase the cost of the entire output so that it 
cannot be sold at a profit at the price current in that field, 
then the Commissioner shall decide w^hat help if any shall 
be given as I outline under the ubject of price fixing. 

If the report shows that a lov/er vein is being mined 
in such way that an upper valuable vein is being wrecked, 
the Commissioner must demand that steps be taken at 
once to so support the roof by props, or flush the lower 
depleted area, that the upper vein be saved; or that the 
upper vein be worked first; or failing all these the mine 
be temporarily closed until means are devised to save 
valuable coal. 

These seem drastic measures. It seems hard to the 
"every mine is the owner's castle" people that the public 
should meddle in private business, in order to save coal 
for itself. 

If it be hard it is necessary. Courts often take the 
management of a man's estate from him when it is shown 
that he is not mentally fit to manage it and is wasting it 
to the damage of his heirs. After the operator stops com- 
plaining of the unwarranted interference on the part of 
the government, he will congratulate himself that he was 
saved from himself, when he realizes that the saved vein 
of coal is now as valuable as the vein he was first working. 



86 COAL 

2. Prevent opening of new mines till needed. There 
is no hardship against which operators have so constantly 
complained as against the ruinous competition and price 
cutting that comes from new mines whose product gluts 
an overloaded market. As long ] as' a mistaken public 
opinion exaggerates the profit in coal mining, some mis- 
guided man or company will open a new mine. As long 
as large acreage is offered at a cheap price, "competition in 
coal mining will not be comparable with competition in 
other industries." 

As the present capacity of the mines is far greater 
t;ian necessary to supply the demand, except in extrordi- 
nary cases, no new mines will be needed for years. This 
restrictive regulation will, of course, be exercised in a prac- 
tical common-sense way. Thus, an exception might be 
made where a company has unmined acreage that cannot 
be mined from its present shaft. When the present mine 
is abandoned, a new one might be allowed in which to use 
its unu-sed machinery. 

Exceptions might be made where there is a small area, 
ab on a hilltop, or where the coal is needed for local use. 
Thi^ should be guarded and inspected, to be sure that this 
temporary mining does not damage other coal. Much of 
the waste and damage to the coal in the primitive mining 
in the anthracite and some bitumuinous fields came from 
the crude mining methods of the small mining companies 

The fact that a large part of the Pocahontas and 
New^ River coal will be withdrawn from commerce will, 
to the extent of probably 20,000,000 tons or more, re- 
duce the competition in the commercial coal. But the 
stoppage of waste in burning, and the increase in, gas pro- 
ducers and byproduct plants will enable a smaller coal 
supply to do the work now done by the larger amount 
of coal. It may be that the increased efficiency of the 
coal produced will keep pace for years with the increased 
demand from increase of population. These restrictions 
are not made for the purpose of limiting the necessary use 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 87 

of coal, but that overproduction which provokes waste, may 
be controlled. 

3. Zoning The Coal Area. The proposition to zone 
the coal industry is not new. The advantages of some 
kind of zoning are too patent to escape the thought of 
intelligence and judgment. ^'Carrying coals to Newcastle'' 
is the essence of folly. Cross-hauling is too wasteful and 
costly. For A to send coal to B, then B to send the same 
kind of coal back to A seems absurd. 

The time to try the experiment never came until it 
was forced upon us by the exigency of war. 

Most operators, probably all of them, without giving it 
serious thought, declare that zoning during the war was 
worse than a failure. It violated the rights of operators, — 
was burdensome and wrong. 

No doubt there were numerous details in the zoning 
during the war that were burdensome and wrong. This 
was unavoidable in a zoning made offhand, with imperfect 
knowledge, and having many of its features determined 
by the efforts to prefer industries essential to winning the 
war. 

In time of peace a zoning will correct the mistakes and 
right the wrongs of wartime zoning. Now no industries 
are preferred : all legitimate industries are peace industries. 
No zone boundaries will be drawn offhand but fixed from 
the vast amount of information gained during the war. 

The boundaries will be flexible and gradually adjusted 
as experience justifies change. As time goes by and con- 
ditions change, the limits may also change. 

Objections That Are Made 

(a) Certain industries are dependent for success on 
coal outside of their zone. For instance, a certain plant in 
Indiana cannot make the coke it needs unless it can get 
coal from Central Pennsylvania to mix with its local coal. 
In such case a small amount! of coal may be allowed to be 
imported from one zone into another, — at least temporarily. 



88 COAL 

New methods and new construction of coke ovens may 
make it unnecessary to use any other than local coal. 

(b) Certain plants have furnaces adapted to coal out- 
side of their zone and cannot efficiently burn local coal. 

A certain common-sense adjustment will be necessary, 
but in a short time such matters will adjust themselves. 
The saving in cost, of coal and a sure supply may warrant 
some expense in making needed changes, and replacements 
will gradually solve the problem. 

(c) Operators who have customers outside of their 
zone may complain that they have buil^ up a trade outside 
of their zone at expense of time and money, and now it 
is arbitrarily taken from them. 

Here we have two cross-objections curing each other. 
Operators in all zones will have customers in their zone 
who are in the market for a new source of supply, — prob- 
ably only too glad that they can get their coal near at 
home with smaller freight rate and a more certain supply. 
Operators simply swap customers. 

These objections will be gradually removed and the 
advantages will be found to far outweigh the disadvantages. 

Advantages of Zoning 

(a) A great reduction to the consumer in freight rate. 
A great part of the cost of coal to the consumer is in the 
freight cost. The price of coal is (for instance, at the 
mine in the Pocahontas field), say, $4 per ton. The freight 
from the mine to Chicago is $2.70 per ton. 

(b) The producer in one zone is protected from the 
surplus coal in another zone. If one zone has a surplus 
of coal by operating its mines steadily, it cannot send its 
surplus into another so as to reduce running-time in that 
zone. 

(c) Better car supply. Cross-hauling requires many 
more cars than are really needed. A car starts from the 
Pittsburgh field with a- load of coal for Kansas ; it takes it 
several days to go and return. All the time consumed by 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 89 

the car in traveling from the Pittsburgh zone to the limit 
of the proper Kansas zone and back is so mucK time lost, 
and so many ton-miles added to the freight cost. This 
wasteful hauling reduces the car supply in the Pittsburgh 
zone, instead of keeping it in its own zone and using it 
over and over again in supplying local demand. The zon- 
ing in the United States during the war saved millions of 
ton-miles, w4iich was equivalent to adding many cars to 
the car supply. 

4. Centralized selling or distributing agencies. Two 
results are attained by centralized selling agencies : 

(a) Reduced selling cost. Every year the cost of 
mining has increased, and it will continue to increase in 
the future. Thinner and deeper veins, longer haul in the 
mines as they grow older, and greater labor cost will 
cause greater cost of coal. Every available means ought 
to be employed to offset these increased costs. It is a 
great waste of energy and money for every mine or com- 
pany to have all the selling machinery which would bt; 
sufficient for all the selling force of the entire field. It 
is also a great waste of the patience of the buyer to have 
to stand the seige of salesmen from most of the mines in 
his district. The reason that the Sherman anti-trust law 
forbade such agency was to prevent a combination of coal 
companies to fix prices. "The more salesmen the better." 
Clearly, the greater the number of salesmen the greater the 
cost of the coal to the consumer. If a buyer here and 
there is benefited now, he will pay for it some time in the 
future and some other buyer will pay for it now. 

(b) Better distribution of orders. ' If possible, the 
orders for coal in a zone should be distributed so that 
each mine will get its equitable quota of business, dis- 
crimination in car supply has wrecked many a min/^ The 
Interstate Commerce Commission and the State Commis- 
sions had to take this evil by the throat, and they have 
done much to kill it. The theory of their activity is that 
every mine ought to have its due quota of opportunity. 



90 COAL 

Cars without orders are a delusion and a snare. If the 
operator has cars and no orders, and does not operate his 
mine, the idle cars are counted against his quota of cars, 
and when he secures new orders, having used up his quota, 
he gets no cars. If he is tempted to operate without orders, 
he may send his coal on an unwilling market and to car 
demurrage. 

This evil the distributing agency tends to remedy. The 
order for coal comes to the agency. They have the in- 
formation needed to tell them what mines arq sold up and 
what mines have no orders. A very important additional 
function is to give the order to the mine producing the kind 
of coal asked for. The orders are distributed, also, as 
much as possible, with reference to the least expense to 
the consumer. 
/ Other things being ec^ual, the coal ought to go from 
the mine nearest to the consumer, so as to save freight costs 
and also increase car supply. If such plan shall even in 
part accomplish these purposes, it will promote economy, 
stability and Justice. 

5. Price fixing in the various zones. Restraining laws 
passed by Congress, are, for the most part, intended as 
price-fixing laws : the Sherman Anti-Trust Law was passed 
on the theory that if certain combinations and understand- 
ings between operators are allowed, prices will be advanced 
much beyond what the consumer ought to pay to cover 
costs and a fair profit. 

Such restraining laws are to that extent price-fixing 
laws. If legislation can indirectly control prices, why not 
directly control them? 

If joint selling and distributing agencies are allowed, 
^ in order to offset that grant, a restraint ought to be put 
upon profiteering to the injury of the public, and upon 
privateering and piracy, which will as surely work harm 
to the public in the end. If high wages and high cost and 
a fair profit fix a maximum selling price, why should not 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 91 

high wages and high cost and a minimum wage fix a mini- 
mum selling price to stop piracy and privateering? 

Diffictilties Attending Price Fixing 

A just selling price must include cost and profit. It is 
hard to determine cost in any extended field, as every field 
has problems peculiar to itself. This difficulty will be 
partially obviated by zoning. Conditions in a zone will 
be more nearly equal within its limited area. A new diffi- 
culty, or an aggravation of an old one, is introduced by 
the demand that, as far as possible, every mine must elimi- 
nate waste. 

The cost of recovering coal that is hard to mine and 
that the operator is disposed to leave in the mine is differ- 
ent for mines even side by side. If the government re- 
quires the operator to win that coal, it ought to, as far 
as possible, protect him from loss. Whether the govern- 
ment fixes prices or not, there will be price-fixing in every 
zone, whether that price be high or low. 

Competition will fix the price of coal of a certain 
quality within a certain radius, regardless of the fact that 
some within that radius have high cost of production and 
others low cost. Cost of production has in the past been 
largely equalized by the high cost operator mining *'easy" 
coal and leaving hard-to-win coal to be lost. If the govern- 
ment demands the recovery of that hard-to-win coal, one 
of two results will follow : 

(a) All the coal mined in a zone will be sold at such 
high price that the coal mined in the high-cost mine will 
be sold at a sufficient profit. This will give the low-cost 
mine an excessive profit and compel the public to pay much 
more for their coal than is right. 

(b) All the coal mined in the zone will be sold at such 
low price that only the low-cost coal will make a profit. 

The result will be that all the high-cost mines will be 
forced to close. No business can be carried on long at a 
loss, or even no profit. The public does not want the 
mines to close in such number as to cause a shortage. 



92 COAL 

They would rather pay a higher price for their coal than 
to freeze. 

When the Fuel Administration fixed the selling price 
of coal so low that the thin vein mines in a single con- 
gressional district in Pennsylvania, to the number of sixty- 
seven, were forced to close, the people demanded that 
prices be advanced so that they could get coal. Beside, this 
would defeat the attempt to conserve the coal supply. If 
mines are closed for long, they will be damaged, probably 
ruined, and all the coal lost. If they are reopened it will 
involve all the expense of opening a new mine. 

The government, then, appears to have undertaken to 
do twQ apparently irreconcilable things : First, — require all 
the coal which can be recovered to be mined; second,-— 
limit the selling price so that all the great body of the 
mines shall make a reasonable but not excessive profit. 

The standard for fixing price is cost plus reasonable 
profit in the lov/-cost or moderately low-cost mines. It will 
be found that this class will include a large body of the 
mines. This class, while they may fret somewhat at the 
thought of any restraint, will very soon congratulate them- 
selves that they are now selling in a stabilized market in 
which they have the novel experience of a fair profit. 

Government Help To The High-Cost Mines 

The operator must not lose the high-cost coal, but he 
cannot recover to a large extent at a loss. 

One of the items that inspectors are required to report 
is : ''How much more will it cost to mine the hard-to-win 
coal than it does to mine the other coal in that mine?'^ 

This difference the government is fairly bound to see 
covered in some way. It does not follow that the owner 
shall make as large profit on his entire output as does the 
owner who has a low-cost mine. His mine is not so valu- 
able. The government o - :ot undertake to make all 
mines equally vain? • ■ e l or instance, one owner has a 
vein of six feet, two of which he had been leaving at the 
top for reasons of poor roof, which it would be expensive 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 93 



to prop if all the coal is taken. His competitor has a six- 
feet vein with a good roof, so- that all the vein was mined 
at one time. 

The first owner before was operating a four-foot vein 
in competition with a six-foot vein, and making a profit. 
His profit per ton was not as great as his competitor's 
profit. Now, if at the demand of the government and its 
help, he could market his entire six-feet at the same profit 
per ton as he did his four-feet vein, his total profit will 
be greater than before. That seems more than he ought 
to demand. If he now can mine his entire vein so as to 
make the same profit as before on four-sixths of his output 
and a smaller profit on the other two-sixths, he is justly 

Objection to a Subsidy 

A great majority of the people protest against paying 
any bonus directly to anybody. 

We want any bonus we pay to be deftly concealed in 
a tariff. In the first place, this is not in a true sense a 
bonus either concealed or open. It is, in fact, not paying 
a bonus to anyone. It is simply paying the operator part 
of his cost in redeeming our own coal, coal that belongs 
to the people and our posterity, coal that, to the full extent 
of its value, lengthens our industrial and com.mercial life, 
or supremacy. 

In the second place, if this coal is recovered, it is much 
cheaper to pay the sm.all amount of the help than to fix 
the selling price of all the coal in the zone so high that the 
high-cost coal can be sold at any profit. 

Hozv Will the Money Be Raised for the Help? 

If this saving of waste is in the interest of all the 
people, they could be fairly charged with payment for it. 

The Federal government represents the people, but it 
can only pay what it has, somehow, collected. The gov- 
ernment does not collect a special fund for each item of 
expenditure, but it seems fair to collect this special fund 
from the industry itself. 



94 COAL 



(a) Collect from the companies in each zone a tax on 
each ton of coal sold. The fact that coal is sold through 
central agencies will make it easy. 

(b) Grant the coal companies an increase in selling 
price to cover that tax. The amount of that tax when 
spread over the entire tonnage will be small per ton. It 
will finally be passed on to the public in whose interest 
it is finally invested. 

6. Partly cure the seasonal character of the coal in- 
dustry. There is no feature of the coal industry that has 
provoked such fruitless discussion and that is so much 
lamented as that coal production seems hopelessly seasonal. 

For several months in the year a large part of the mines 
are practically idle, and for other months can scarcely 
supply the demand. The average condition of the coal 
business is fairly reflected in a statement made to the late 
coal commission concerning the coal business in Montana: 

Normal business in Montana means comparatively steady 
working time for three months, three-quarters time for three 
months, half time three months and quarter time three months. 

These conditions bring about the f ollov/ing evil results : 
(1) On the average, excessive, probably ruinous, cost 
of production. This fact is illustrated clearly by the ex- 
perience of operators in this same Montana field. 

The selling price of coal for Montana, fixed by the Fuel 
Administration, was fairly adequate during the year 1918 be- 
cause of abnormal conditions, resulting in steady working time 
and creating a demand for all grades of coal. During the year 
1919 practically every operator in the state has operated at a 
loss, even though the price restriction was removed and selling 
prices advanced thirty to fifty-five cents a ton for lump coal. 

This loss was caused by the fact that in 1919 demand 
fell oflF, and mines operated only a few days each week. 

We may illustrate the seasonal effect on profit by a 
not improbable case : 

A mine has a capacity output of one thousand tons 
daily. The output can all be sold at the mine at $2.50 a 
ton. The fixed charges per day, including interest, depre- 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 95 



ciation, insurance, salaries, pumping, and clearing out falls 
in the mine are $1000 a day. The fixed charges and added 
operating charges when the mine is running are $2000 a 
day. If the mine is operated six days in the week, the 
output of six thousand tons is sold for $15,000, cost of 
production is $12,000, and the profit for the week is $3000. 

If the mine is operated three days in the week, the output 
of three thousand tons is sold for $7500 the cost of produc- 
tion is $6000 for the three operating days, and $3000 for 
the three idle days, or a total cost of $9000. The loss for 
the week is therefore $1500. 

(2) Injustice to mine labor. Miners' leaders, when 
demanding increased wages for mine labor, are confronted 
with mine payrolls showing large monthly earnings of the 
men. 

They reply that the mining industry is seasonal; that, 
though many men make good wages when they can work 
every day in the month, yet, owing to the large amount of 
enforced idle time in the year, especially in summer, their 
yearly earnings are small. 

The two factors that fix the yearly tonnage mined by 
the average miner during the year are: (1) the amount 
of coal demanded by the market during the year; (2) the 
number of miners. 

Unless one or the other of these factors is varied there 
will, of course, be no change in the yearly output by the 
average miner. Whether that fixed amount of coal is 
mined in about one hundred and ninety-fi_ve days or thirty- 
two and one-half weeks, as at present, or in fifty-two 
weeks, makes no difference in the actual tonnage mined by 
each man in the year. The demand of a thirty-hour week, 
which was recently made, could only be rationally made on 
the assumption that the seasonal character of the coal 
industry is entirely eliminated. If the public could be 
persuaded or forced to buy as much coal in June and July 
as in January and December, and so for all the other 
months, spread the output of coal uniformly over the 
fifty-two weeks, then the same number of miners might 



96 COAL 



mine, by working thirty hours a week for fifty-two weeks, 
the demanded output that they now mine by working 
forty-eight hours a week for thirty-two and one-half weeks. 

If the seasonal character of the coal industry could be 
changed so that men might have steady work if it did 
not increase the average output per man, even if pay per 
ton were not changed, it would benefit the miner. It would 
increase his physical and mental worth. If a man works 
only, on the average, a day and a half each week; some 
weeks no work ; some, three or four days a week for three 
months, he is in danger of suffering physically, mentally, 
and perhaps morally. When the peak of the demand 
comes, his enforced idleness has rendered him unfit for 
the strenuous work he then has to do. 

But when the time comes that the miners get their 
demand for a thirty-hour week, they will again couple with 
it a demand for a sixty per cent increase in mining rates. 
That is, they demand as much money for a thirty-hour 
week as they before received for a forty-eight hour week. 
If all these demands are granted, they are in danger of 
inviting a condition on which they have not counted. 

First, if the seasonal character of the coal business is 
not changed, the number of miners will have to be in- 
creased. At the peak of the demand in winter it takes all 
the miners that are now employed, working forty-eight 
hours in the week, to mine the needed coal, and often there 
is a shortage of labor. It would take sixty per cent more 
men to meet the demand, if they worked only thirty hours 
a week than it did to meet the same demand when they 
worked forty-eight hours a week. Mining would be at- 
tractive, large pay and short hours, so the additional men 
could be readily obtained. Once in the ranks of the miners, 
the men claim the same right to continuous employment as 
the other miners. Thus this constant amount of yearly 
demand is now distributed over a larger number of men, 
and the average miner has less tonnage than before he got 
his sixty per cent increase. The increase in men will just 
balance the increase in price per ton and the miner will 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 97 

not be benefiited but the public will be the grievous sufferer. 
Second. The alternative condition that they invite is 
that, if the seasonal character of the business is changed 
so that there is no appreciable peak of demand and the 
present number of miners could supply the demand by 
working thirty hours a week, that other labor will either 
receive a thirty-hour week or demand that the number of 
miners be reduced, so that they, too, will have to work 
thirty-five or forty-two, or forty-eight hours a week. 

Increase in Yearly Demand for Coal Will Not Help Labor 

As long as the present seasonal character of the coal 
business continues, increase in the amount of coal re- 
quired by the market in a year will not increase the 
tonnage output by each miner. The number of men re- 
quired at the time of year when demand is greatest will 
be increased in the same proportion as the increase in 
demand. 

It is a real hardship that men who are called in to help 
in time of urgent need, and will be called again when 
urgent need arises, are cut off from a chance to earn living- 
wages when that need passes and demand dwindles to a 
minimum. 

(3) Seasonal coal promotes car shortage. In summer- 
time coal cars that ought to be hauling storage coal are 
idle; there is little demand for coal. 

In fall, when coal cars are in demand to put in some 
of winter's supply, engines are busy hauling wheat, corn, 
live stock, and other food supplies. 

When winter comes in earnest, with little storage coal 
in the public's bins, when engines themselves use up large 
coal supply for their increased duty, when industrial and 
domestic demands are at their height, when snow-drifts 
and storms are at their cruel climax, the adequate car 
supply is at its lowest. 

How can the coal industry be made an all-year industry f 
The coal' industry cannot be so changed that absolutely 



98 COAL 



the same amount of coal will be mined each month in the 
year, — it is not desirable that such result be completely 
attained. 

It is certain that such change as is desirable may be 
attained by use of two means : 

First. Voluntary co-operation of consumers. Propa- 
ganda shall make a placard, "Buy coal in summer," as 
m.uch in evidence as, ''Buy early for Christmas." This 
should be followed by statement of a very forcible reason, 
for such buying, '*Buy coal in summer and save money." 
The way in which they save money will be given later. 

Second. Pressure on certain buyers even to point of 
coercion. 

Railroads required to store three months' supply by 
November first. Railroads, being under Federal regula- 
tion, though now returned to their owners, may be required 
by the first of November gradually to accumulate in stor- 
age during -the summer months a winter's supply for three 
months. 

During the next five months, — that is, from November 
first to xA^pril first, — the ygradually reduce their supply, so 
that by April first their supply is reduced to one month's 
needs. In order to accomplish this result in the fivje 
months, they buy and take out of the general: market only 
three months' supply for themselves. 

This plan accomplishes three very important results : 

(1) The railroads buy during the summer months two 
months' supply more than they ordinarily do. 

(2) They buy two months' supply less in the winter 
than they ordinarily do and thus reduce by that much the 
required winter output. 

(3) Release the cars that now are needed to haul that 
two months' coal supply in winter, for use to haul other 
coal and freight. 

(b) Certain other corporations must observe the same 
rule. I have suggested that certain steel companies be 
allowed cross-haul from West Virginia coal that otherwise 
would be reserved as **Navy" coal Also it is propose^ 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 99 



to assist certain companies that will build byproduct plants, 
by granting them a loan. These and similar corporations 
ihould be required to store winter coal in the same way 
that railroads store their supply. 

(c) State and municipal institutions, public utilities, 
street railways, interurbari railroads, electric light and heat 
companies, water companies, schools, hospitals, State and 
county institutions, should be urged and, as far as prac- 
ticable, required to observe such storage regulations as 
those before outlined. No hard-and-fast rule can be ap- 
plied to every such consumer, — lack of storage-room may 
restrict the amount of storage. But even a partial con- 
formity will be worth while. 

It seems probable that, railroads, preferred industries, 
and public institutions, together with domestic and private 
users who can be induced to store in summer, will make 
one-half of the consumers in the quantity of coal used. 
If these store in the summer eight weeks' winter require- 
ments more than their summer demands, that will add 
forty million tons to the summer output, and take that 
much out of the winter output. 

During the five months, or twenty-one weeks, of No- 
vember, December, January, February, and March the 
average weekly requirement is at present thirteen million 
tons, or a total of two hundred and seventy-three million 
tons. During the three months of April, September, and 
October the average weekly requirement is ten million 
tons, or a total of one hundred and thirtv million tons. 
During the summer months of May, June, July and August 
the average weekly requirement now is about half as much 
as in winter, or six million, five hundred thousand tons, 
or a total for eighteen weeks of one hundred and seventeen 
million tons. 

Now, taking forty million tons from the ordinary re- 
quirement of two hundred and seventy-three million in 
the winter, leaves two hundred and thirty-three million to 
be put out in twenty-one weeks, or say, eleven million tons 
a week. 



100 COAL 



The weekly requirement for April, September, and Oc- 
tober remains ten millions. 

Adding forty million tons to the ordinary output in the 
four summer months, makes one hundred and fifty-seven 
million tons output in eighteen weeks, — or say, eight mil- 
lion, seven hundred thousand tons each week. 

If the same number of men work as now, in the five 
winter months they must work eleven-tenths of thirty 
hours, or thirty-three hours each week. In the months of 
April, September, and October they must work ten-tenths 
of the basic time, or thirty hours. In the summer months 
of May, June, July, and August they must work, say nine- 
tenths of thirty hours, or twenty-seven hours a week. 

The conclusions are based on the assumption that the 
miners will work a definite number of hours each week. 
Of course, that cannot be fully realized. Car shortage, fluct- 
uating demand, storms, snows, floods, and holidays make 
an absolute constancy impossible. But these results repre- 
sent the fair average conditions. 

The requirement of thirty-three hours a week in wintter 
and thirty hours in April, September, and October may 
be met by five days of seven hours each week on the 
average. 

The requirement of twenty-seven hours a week in the 
summer may be met by four days of seven hours. This 
requirement of four days of seven hours in the summer is 
a vast improvement on the present experience of fifteen 
or sixteen hours a week. It is not only an improvement 
but it ma}^ be ideal. It is the vacation time for mine 
workers, — -a vacation while still earning. 

Progressive companies are building their company 
houses so that each family can have a garden, — or a tract 
of land is set aside so that each family can cultivate a part. 
If the industry is made more stable, if the men become 
more contented they will more and more buy their own 
homes and have their own garden and chickens. This 
vacation time, on the average of two days in the week, 
gives the miners time and incentive to cultivate their 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 101 

gardens and thus reduce the actual outlay of their money 
for vegetables. Also, these four months are the time 
in the year when farm labor is most in demand. The 
days spent in a corn-field or harvest-field bring many 
a dollar to add to the yearly income. 

As was before said, the curing the seasonal character 
of coal mining will not give each worker a greater yearly 
wage unless demand is increased, or the number of men 
is decreased. Demand does not promise to be much greater 
in the near future. If the miner is not satisfied with his 
yearly wage, supplemented as above outlined, he ought to 
seek some other employment. If the seasonal character 
of mining is cured, eighty per cent of the present men can 
do the work that is needed. Thus, if the number of men 
is eighty per cent of the present workers, they would only 
have to work forty-two hours a week in winter; thirty- 
eight hours in April, September, and October, and thirty- 
five hours in May, June, July, and August. These num- 
bers of hours do not seem excessive. 

Cheaper Freight Rates in Summer 

In order to make an incentive to consumers to store 
coal in summer, it has been proposed that railroad freight 
rate be thirty cents a ton less in summer than in winter. 
Operators also might make a small reduction in coal price, 
or rather the price fixed for them may be less by a small 
amount per ton in summer than in winter. It does, in 
fact, not cost the operator less in summer but rather more ; 
however, the more he can increase his summer output the 
more it helps to reduce his loss. He ought to have a 
larger profit in winter to compensate for the small profit 
or loss during the time of small output in summer. 

7. Reduce Our Export Of Coal To The Lowest Pos- 
sible Limit 

The only coal that we can export is our very best coal. 
For a short time, a considerable export will be necessary 
because of the need in Europe. We must help to supply 
what is needed to prevent suffering. For a time we will 



102 COAL 



export coal to Canada. That is where our largest export 
has gone in the past. Our export to Canada will gradually 
become a matter of exchange. Our coal will go to a con- 
tiguous coalless region of Canada, and Canadian coal will 
ccii^e to a contiguous coalless region of the United States. 

The pressing present need for our coal in Europe is to 
a degree a temporary need. Every European nation will 
grow increasingly independent of us. Germany can more 
than supply its own needs, even while giving to France 
what she owes for destroying France's mines. France, her 
northern mines restored, with the added supply from 
Lorraine, can more nearly meet her own requirements than 
she could before the war. England, in addition to fur- 
nishing coal for her own use, will again supply Italy, 
France, Spain, and South America. The great coal fields 
of Russia, which were commencing to produce large output 
before the war, have great undeveloped areas. The *Vhite 
coal" of Italy, Spain, and other countries is coming more 
and more into prominence. Our export to Europe before 
the war was almost negligible. 

I know it is rank heresy to advocate a restriction of 
the export of our coal. A large export is the panacea for 
all our coal ills. One distinguished enthusiast predicts an 
annual export of a hundred million tons, and glories in 
the prospect. However, aside from present humanitarian 
ones, every argument for a large export of coal is fallacious : 

(1) We have large overproduction of coal, therefore 
we must have large export to absorb it. This statement 
ought to be put the other way round. We must not and 
will not have overproduction, therefore we must not and 
cannot export coal. 

(2) We can sell coal for export at a better price than 
we can sell it at home. It is small wonder that our export 
coal sells at a higher price than most of our coal sold at 
home. The coal we export is the very best we have, "more 
valuable than our anthracite, its exhaustion will be a 
calamity." The operator who thinks he is selling his coal 
at its full value is mistaken. If he continues to mine coal 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CO NTROL 103 

for a few years, and looks back upon what he is now 
doing, he will see it in its true light. He sent his best 
raw coal across the ocean, giving enormous profit to the 
foreign ships that carried it, and saw the drugs, dyes, and 
medicines that were made from poorer coal sent back to 
us by the millions of dollars worth. It is a strange craze 
to sell raw coal and import its valuable and costly constitu- 
ents, and then condemn the policy of exporting our wool 
and bringing back the expensive fabrics we ought to make 
at home. 

As a nation we have interest in the preservation and 
developments of our natural resources. 

We are interested in export of coal and its restriction 
from its economic aspect. But we are vitally interested 
to stop export of our only "Navy" coal. Most of the coal 
now being sent abroad is from our semi-bituminous coal. 
To export, or use, — for any other than government use, — 
our Pocahontas coal is what would be treason if done 
consciously with intent to do what it in fact will do, 
weaken our national defense, by making our future navy 
a second-class navy. 



CHAPTER XII 

METHODS OF ENFORCING THESE CONTROLS 

By Amicable Co-operation of States, Operators, Railroads 
?nd the Public — By Pressure Upon Certain Classes That Re- 
fuse — Railroads Must Not Extend Line or Put in Switch With- 
out Certificate — Railroads Must Embargo Outside of Fixed 
Zones — Price-Fixing Agreed Upon in Compensation for Selling 
and Distributing Agencies — Objections to Maximum Price-Fix- 
ing By Operators — Objections to Minimum Price By Consumers. 

1. By amicable co-operation of States, operators, 
railroads, and the public. New ways of doing things 
lake time, tact, and patience for their introduction. 
Some of these forms of control have been suggested 
now and again as something about which we may 
dream but for which we may not hope. Some will 
meet with denunciation, but in time this control will 
be accepted with enthusiasm. 

2. By pressure exerted upon those who refuse to 
co-operate. Much of the machinery for enforcing them 
is already constructed. Congress is clothed with ample 
power to enact any additional legislation that may be 
needed. 

Conserving the coal supply is providing for the gen- 
eral welfare of the United States, *'it is providing for 
the national defense.'' Let us examine these controls 
to see what present laws might warrant. 

(a) No New Mine to Be Opened Without Certificate 

This may be enforced, if necessary, by Federal con- 
trol of railroad extensions. No new mine can do much 
to inflate the commercial coal supply, without railroad 
connection. The new railroad bill has the following 
restrictions on new railroad connections : 

104 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 105 



No carrier by railroad, subject to this act, shall undertake 
the extension of its line of railroad, or the construction of a 
new line of railroad or shall acquire or operate any line of 
railroad or extension thereof or shall engage in transportation 
under this act, over or by means of such addition or extended 
line of railroad unless and until there shall first have been 
obtained a certificate from the commission that the present 
and future public convenience and necessity requires or will 
require the construction and operation of such additional or 
extended line of railroad or the operation thereof. 

This seems to inhibit the construction of a spur or 
switch, or the operation of any such construction that 
the coal company may make without a certificate. 

(b) Requiring a Certificate Before a Mine Can Be 
Abandoned 

A railroad cannot now abandon any part of its line 
without a certificate. 

No railroad shall abandon all or any part of its line of 
railroad or operation thereof unless and until there shall first 
have been obtained from the commission a certificate that 
the present and future convenience and necessity of the public 
may permit such abandonment. 

A railroad cannot of its own motion destroy a mine 
or other industry by abandoning a spur or switch w^hich 
now serves it. The government protects the mine, the 
mine is bound to reciprocally observe the government 
restriction on its own abandonment. If a mining com- 
pany wants to abandon a mine, it is because conditions 
are such that it cannot be operated at a profit, or that 
it is worked out. If the Federal commission refuses a 
certificate, it must be because the mine has recoverable 
coal that is not yet mined. It is not likely that the 
operator will want to abandon his mine when shown 
the new way in which it is proposed to help him win 
all the coal, A mineowner who would attempt to evade 



106 COAL 

this requirement would never be granted a permit to 
open a new mine. 

(c) Requiring the Zoning of the Mining Fields 

Embargo by railroads can be enforced, if necessary. 
Railroads have always claimed and exercised the right 
to embargo freight for cause, and sometimes w^ithout 
sufficient cause. Railroads may now be required to 
confine their coal freight within the zone in which it 
originates and embargo all coal from that zone with 
reference to any terminus outside its limits. Rail- 
roads and coal men will soon find that the advantages 
of such zoning far outweigh its disadvantages. The 
railroads will not have their cars scattered over every 
other railroad, used by it till it sees fit to return them. 
Operators will have a better car supply and better 
profits. Only a certain price can be passed on to the 
consumer, the less of that which must be charged 
against freight the more there is left for operator and 
labor. 

(d) Allow and Encourage Selling Agencies 

(1) Congress which enacted the Sherman Anti- 
Trust Law, a law that aimed to correct certain abuses 
and that, while it,^ did much good in the past, has been 
so construed as to work much harm, — may modify it 
by providing for such agencies and repealing all laws 
inconsistent therewith. 

(2) The Supreme Court has practically construed 
out of the Sherman Law any povv^er to prevent reason- 
able selling agencies. In the Northern Securities case 
they held that it must be construed "according to the 
rule of reason.'* Strange that a court decision should 
be necessary to introduce com.mon sense in construing 
a law. 

In the United States Steel case the court held that 
restraint of trade, or seeming monopoly, must be shown 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 107 

"to be injurious to the public interest" before it will 
be crushed. 

Under these decisions selling agencies ought to be 
safe. Applying the "rule of reason/' selling agencies 
are not "injurious to the public interest" but greatly 
promotive of the public interest. 

They promote conservation in mining, by limiting 
ruinous competition that tends to wasteful methods of 
operating; they encourage better preparation of the 
coal, by docking poorly prepared coal ; they promote 
more uniform operation of mines and thus help both 
operators and labor ; they ensure better prices to the 
consumer, by reducing selling cost ; they reduce freight 
charges by sending coal from the mine nearest to the 
buyer ; they give better service to the buyer, for now 
coal is distributed scientifically and not helter-skelter, 
since the entire field is mapped out and its wants 
studied. 

(e) Fixing Maximum and Minimum Selling Price 

(1) Many operators may object to a selling price 
in the light of their experience with the Fuel Adminis- 
tration ; their mines may have been closed, or they may 
have suffered loss because of the low price fixed for 
their selling price. Any such price-fixing, w^hich either 
caused loss or did not, on the contrary, allow a profit, 
was in direct violation of the very law under which 
the Fuel Administration was acting. The Lever Law 
required that prices be fixed so as to cover cost of 
production, depreciation, depletion, and a fair profit. 
Toward this result the Fuel Administration constantly 
strove. As data were collected and wrongs righted, 
operators became more and more reconciled, and deep 
down in their hearts they felt that if the Lever Law 
were executed in its real spirit they would have had 
the time of their life. 

(2) Consumers may object to a mdnimum selling price. 
They can see that Federal fixing of a maximum price is 



108 COAL 

intended for their protection. Yet some of them had 
an object lesson on the fact that prices may be fixed 
too low when they saw) the mines on which they de- 
pended for coal being closed because they could only 
operate at a loss and sell at the low price fixed for 
their coal. 

A too low selling price may be more damaging to 
the public than a too high selling price. Thus, if a 
strong company sells temporarily at a price less than 
cost of production, it may have either of two effects : 
first, it may freeze out all weak competitors and when 
they are out of the market the strong company raises 
prices abnormally ; second, the competing companies 
may meet the low prices by mining ''easy" coal, and 
thus defeat the eflfort at conservation of the consumers' 
future supply of coal. 

(3) Political economists may object. They say 
"relative supply and demand must fix prices." It is 
strange that this dictum of the political economists 
should go unchallenged when used in the sense in which 
they use it. In a commodity such as coal, scarcity is 
not necessarily an excuse for high price. We are speak- 
ing now of what ought to control prices. Cost of pro- 
duction, depreciation, depletion, and a fair profit con- 
stitute the only true moral and just basis for selling 
price. When Joseph and Pharaoh, acting wisely on 
inside information, gathered every year a portion of 
the people's corn and stored it against the lean years 
of famine, they were entitled to plenty of cornmeal 
and a good salary. But when they in times of scarcity 
sold the people thei,r own corn, held in trust for them, 
— first for all their money then their land, then for 
themselves, — ^Joseph and Pharaoh were the greatest 
profiteers in all history. Radiu(m is scarce and dear, 
but not properly dear because it is scarce. Near a 
town in Western Pennsylvania is a plant devoted to 
the production of radium. A neighbor expressed the 
real basis for its dearness when he said, "That is the 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 109 



strangest factory I ever saw: tons and tons of ma- 
terial brought here in trains and taken to the mill, and 
nothing coming out." These tons of material were 
hewed out from almost inaccessible regions in the Far 
West, hauled thousands of miles, and the output of all 
this labor and cost is carried out in a little tube. If 
we count cost of radium in money spent, labor of brawn 
and brain, it ought to be dear, — -but not simply because 
it is scarce. 

Scarcity of coal and a small output establish a legiti- 
late basis for greater selling price than if the output 
i» large, but not because it is scarce primarily but 
because it costs more to produce it. Overhead charges, 
depreciation, and fixed charges are greater per ton 
w^hen spread over a small output than over a large 
output. 

(/) Maximum Price Fixing is Taken in Exchange for 
the Right to Establish Selling Agencies 

The objection to selling agencies has been that the 
power to charge exhorbitant prices is thereby put into 
the^hands of operators. This objection is removed if 
prices are fixed by other than the combining operators. 

It ought to be repeated, however, that prices should 
be Hberal enough to give a profit commensurate with 
the great risk and increasing difficulties in mining. 
Consumers have been used to such low^ prices that they 
are apt to think such conditions will last forever. But 
when they are fuli3/ informed, they wall be willing to 
bear the addition of a cent or tw^o a bushel, knowing 
that the price is fixed by a just and competent com- 
mission. 



CHAPTER XIII 

LABOR AND WAGES 

Causes of Unrest All End in Demand for More Wages- 
Does Labor Give Coal All Its Value— Coal Land and Equip- 
ment Crystallized Labor — Large Outlay Favorable to Labor — 
Standard of Mine Wages — Methods of Settling Labor Condi- 
tions and Wages— "Mining Board of Labor Adjustment*' Fix 
Conditions Not Wages— :"Mining Labor Board" Adjust Wages — 
Public Is Made Arbiter After Being Fully Informed — Col- 
lective Bargaining — Bargaining By Union Officials and Opera- 
tors — Good if Union Is Incorporated, Becomes Legally Re- 
sponsible, and Can Enforce Its Contract — ^At Present of Little 
Binding Force — Ideal Collective Bargaining. 

One of the most difficult subjects connected with coal 
mining is the adjustment of wages and other labor 
conditions. 

Many of the conditions affecting the welfare of 
mine labor are regulated by law, such as ventilation, 
use of lamps in gaseous mines, permissible explosives, 
and manway for escapes in case of accident. General 
laws fixing mine wages have not yet been passed, but 
laAvs requiring companies to pay shot firers, require 
them to pay for all the coal mined, including slack coal 
are in force. 

The Constitution of Ohio gives the Legislature power 
to pass a law fixing minimum wages. 

Miners have been in a continual state of unrest. 
Strikes large or small are always going on in some 
part of the field, and discontent and agitation for strike 
in many others. Labor agitators and politicians thrive 
on strikes and discontent, but operators and miners do 
not. 

Every strike renders operators less able to pay good 
wages, and involves a direct loss to miners, and scarcely 
ever a compensating indirect benefit. Direct and in- 

1 J 110 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 111 

direct loss to the public has been great beyond computation. 

The public is generally very sympathetic with labor. 
But when it sees labor careless of public comfort and 
interest, it changes sympathy to resentment. It is 
hard to keep a warm heart in a freezing body. 

The causes of this unrest are as varied as the char- 
acter and conditions of the men. Foreigners are not 
getting what they expected from the glowing accounts 
they got at home ; young men with no home ties, no 
interest in the company, in each other, or in the com- 
munity, want amusement ; men who do not read don't 
know vv^hat to do with their idle time. This is the soil 
from which grow strikes. The union official, the walk- 
ing delegate, the everlasting agitator, — these can weave 
all these causes into one proposition : **What you want 
is more wages." 

Whatever the real end that the officials have in mind, 
the ostensible end put forward is more wages. An 
appeal for more wages is one in which all can join. 

In a company composed of the radical, the gullible, 
the ignorant, the intelligent, and the fair minded, it is 
not much wonder that there is a great difference of 
opinion as to how much more wages they must re- 
ceive. 

They may start together by quoting the selling price 
of a ton of coal and the wage paid to the miner for 
digging it. If the selling price is $3 and the mining 
price is $1.10, what has become of the difference, and 
v/hat should be done with it? The most pronounced 
radical says it should be divided between the miner 
and the other labor employed in producing it. If he 
is told that it must cover various things beside labor, 
such as supplies and a proper return for capital in- 
vested, he replies : "There is no such thing as capital 
upon v/hich a return is due. Labor gives coal all the 
value it has." 

This dictum might be accepted as a not bad stand- 
ard of value, But the value which any object has to 



112 COAL 



the man who claims to own it does not necessarily 
^uine from his own labqr upon that particular object. 

Labor as a thing of value can be exchanged for 
other labor. We make that exchange convenient by- 
means of some medium, — such as money. The miner 
when he is working may truly say: ''1 am just coining 
money.'' When he exchanges that money for a house, 
the house is his crystallized labor. He has exchanged 
his mine labor for the labor of the carpenter and 
mason. If such a man gets that far along, he may be 
able to see that^ the coal land, the tipple, engines, cars, 
shafts, rails, boilers, fans, mules, and motors are just 
as much labor as the shoes on his feet and his home. 
Hundreds of people have bought bonds and stock of the 
company to furnish the money to buy these equipments, 
who worked for the money, or their fathers and moth- 
ers did. Every tube in the boilers, every nail in the 
tipple, was worked for by someone. 

If these equipments are labor, they ought to bring 
some return for their use and destruction ; every day 
destroys a part of this accumulated labor that was 
worked for by someone, until finally it has all been 
destroyed. 

It is no more fair to take this labor without pay 
th)an it would have been to take the labor for which 
it was exchanged without pay, or to take the miners' 
labor without pay. 

There is a class of "reformers" who contend that it 
is w^rong to pay any interest or dividend even if capital 
is accumulated labor ; they say that it is enough that 
it be kept intact and returned to the owner. If this 
were true it would not affect the present case. 

Interest and dividends paid on stock and bonds 
(when paid at all as a majority of the coal companies 
are never able to pay any dividends) in the mining 
industry are simply paying back the principal in in- 
stallments. The ^equipment for which the principal was 
paid is soon worn out and new equipment has to be 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 113 



bought. When the coal is exhausted there is nothing 
left to return to anybody. 

Mining is different from other industries in that 
every year the principal grows less and finally entirely 
disappears. 

A large coal holding by the company is favorable 
to the miner. This is a very large item which must 
be charged to cost and one which is very little consid- 
ered in wage and cost discussion. 

If labor is to be stabilized, labor and capital har- 
monized, so that the industrious thrifty worker may 
settle down in one place to spend his life there, own 
his home, identify himself with the community, and 
take his proper part in civic affairs and accumulate a 
competency, the company must spend a large amount 
of money for coal lands and equipment. It must have 
enough coal land to last for forty, fifty, or a hundred 
years. This land may cost from $300 to $3000 an acre, 
and from fifteen thousand to twenty-five thousand 
acres must be bought as well as a considerable sur- 
face area. Properly to develop such land only the best 
equipment that money will buy will be installed. Con- 
crete shaft-lining, haulage-ways are n^ade; cars, tipple, 
engines, and all the varied equipment must be of the 
most modern. The cost of carrying this expense, re- 
newals, new devices, taxes, selling costs, workmen's 
compensation, — all must be included in the cost of the 
co^l. 

To this must be added a reasonable profit and the 
cost of labor. And the minimum selling price should 
be fixed by the government so as to cover all these. 

Standard Of Wages For Mine Labor 

It is a trite saying that *'labor should have a good 
living wage." The public should be willing to pay such 
a wage. They pay now for their coal not more than one- 
fourth to one-fifth as much as they do in coal-exporting 
England. 



114 COAL 

Each principal industry receives a larger return on 
its investment than the coal industry does, largely be- 
cause it buys its coal so cheap. The miner is doing a 
public service and earning his living in a grimy, haz- 
ardous w^ork. 

If we could agree as to w^hat is a fair annual income 
for mine laborer, including the necessities and comforts 
of life and a proper saving for the future, and knew^ 
the number of days the days-man v^ill probably have 
an opportunity to work, of course his proper day's w^age 
is fixed. Also, if we could know how many tons of 
coal a pick-miner can dig in a year, his proper price 
per ton is at once fixed, so that he can earn the stand- 
ard yearly income. 

It seems fair to say that it ought to be possible 
for a skilled man to earn $1500 a year. Many large 
incomes have been made by miners in the past even 
before the new increase. 

Miners in the non-union mines of West Virginia 
have had an income of $3100 a year; with the added 
twenty-seven per cent, their earnings would be nearly 
rour thousand dollars. These large incomes are rather 
exceptional and in circumstances not open to all. 

Probably a better average would be $1200 to $1600 
a year. With the added twenty-seven per cent, the 
amount would be $1500 to $2000 a year. 

The Commission appointed by the President fixed 
the price for pick-mining in parts of Pennsylvania and 
Ohio at $1.11 a ton, and 4ay labor at about $6 a day. 

To earn $1500 the pick-miner will have to mine 
thirteen hundred and fifty tons in a year, which is six 
tons a day for two hundred and twenty-five days, and 
the days-man must work two hundred and fifty days 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 115 

to earn $1500 or two hundred and twenty-five days to 
earn $1350. 

Method of Settling Labor Disputes 

The new railroad law in the last analysis makes the 
public the umpire. Neither operators nor miners can 
dare for long to defy public opinion, when the public 
is both interested and understands the issue. Here- 
tofore there has been no effort to inform the public as 
to the merits of any labor difficulty. What the people 
learned about any dispute was from the sensational 
misinformation found in yellow journals and speeches 
of misinformed office-seekers. Adapting the provisions 
of the railroad act to the mining industry by proper 
substitutions and eliminations, we have the promise 
of a suggestive study for a wise solution. 

(1) The Federal Mining Commission authorizes the 
formation of a ''Mining Board of Labor Adjustment." 

A Mining Board of Labor Adjustment may be estab- 
lished by agreement between any operator, group of 
operators, or the operators as a whole, and any em- 
ployees, or organization, or group of organizations 
thereof. Each such adjustment board shall (1) upon 
application of any operator or organization of em- 
ployees, whose members are directly interested in the 
dispute ; (2) upon written petition, signed by a given 
number of unorganized employees directly interested in 
the dispute ; (3) upon the board's own motion, receive 
for hearing and as soon as practicable and with due 
diligence decide any disputes involving only grievances, 
rules, and working conditions. This board does not con- 
sider either wages or hours of work. 

(2) The Mining Commission creates a ''Mining Labor 
tioard,'' This board shall consist of nine members ap- 
pointed by the President by and with consent of the 
Senate: (1) three members constituting the labor group, 
chosen by the President from not less than six nom- 



116 COAL 



inees made by the employees ; (2) three members con- 
stituting the management group, chosen by the Presi- 
dent from not less than six nominees made by the op- 
erators ; (3) three members constituting the public 
group, representing the public. The Labor Board, (1) 
upon the application of the officers of organized 
labor, whose members are directly interested in 
the dispute ; (2) upon application of a certain member 
of unorganized employees directly interested in the 
dispute ; (3) upon its own motion, shall receive for 
hearing and with all due diligence decide all disputes 
with respect to wages of employees. All decisions of 
the Labor Board with respect to wages shall take 
into consideration: (1) the scale of wiages paid for 
similar kinds of work in other industries ; (2) the rela- 
tion between wages and cost of living; (3) the hazard 
of the employment; (4) training and skill required; (5) 
character and regularity of employment ; (6) any in- 
equalities in any former adjustment. They shall gather, 
compile, classify, digest, and publish data and informa- 
tion, to the end that the Labor Board may be equipped 
to perform its duties and the Public may be properly 
informed. 

The Public the Umpire 

These boards do not set out any specific way in which 
their decisions shall be enforced. 

The Labor Board, in case that any decision is violated by 
any operator, employee or organization, after due notice and 
a hearing to all persons directly interested in said violation, 
shall determine whether such violation has occurred, and make 
public its decision in such manner as it may determine. 

This is simply, so far, a reliance on public opinion 
for enforcement of the board's decision. In the opin- 
ion of many, an anti-strike provision ought to have 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 117 

been kept in the railroad law. But Congress weak- 
ened. They were afraid to deny the ***inviolable right 
to strike." 

Collective Bargaining 

Bargaining between the operators and the United 
Mine Workers. 

Collective bargaining has but one meaning in the minds 
of the officials of the United Mine Workers. It means bar- 
gaining between the United Miners' Union and operators. 
It means that at a certain time a convention is held 
at which delegates representing the different local 
unions in the district meet with representatives of the 
operators in that district. The convention organizes, 
then the miners in separate caucus formulate their de- 
mands for an increase in wages above their former 
contract, and other conditions favorable to the miners. 
These demands are presented to the operators, who also 
hold a caucus, and decide what they can do. Of course, 
the miners' demands are not accepted. It is not ex- 
pected that they would or could be, for that matter. 
The debate is carried on in open convention, — ^probably 
for many days. Proposals and counter-proposals may 
be made, until finalU an agreement is reached, or it is 
found impossible to agree. 

If no agreement is reached before the end of the 
contract period, there is a strike. 

If they agree finally on terms, wiages, length of time 
the contract is to run, and other conditions, the opera- 
tors and officials of the union sign a contract, which 
is supposed to bind both parties and every member of 
the union. 

If the new contract is fair to labor, and is such that 
operators can mine and make a reasonable profit, so far 
it is good. The debate and negotiations in convention 
ought to show both parties w^hat is fair. 

It ought to be done more intelligently than it could 
be with less intelligent and poorly informed individual 



118 COAL 

miners. The operators ought now to be able to decide 
what they can afford to sell for and what labor will 
cost them. But, unfortunately, this is not true. A 
contract presupposes equal responsibility on the part 
of both parties. If the owner of a mine does not pay 
for labor, a lien is entered against his property, which 
comes ahead of almost every other claim. If the miner 
violates his contract, made for him by his officers, the 
union and officials can in no wise be held responsible. 
The United Mine Workers will not incorporate so as 
to make the union hp.ve legal responsibility. They are 
exempt from the operation of the anti-trust legislation. 
The miner's vote is more valuable to Congressmen than 
the votes of the operators, — there are miore of them. 
They are just a group of men ostensibly binding them- 
selves to do certain things, if it is convenient. 

The operator cannot calculate costs, for he cannot 
tell at what time a strike will come that will add very 
much to the cost. He cannot tell whether he can fill 
his contract orders, for he cannot tell whether the 
miners will work or not. If The United Miners' Union 
Avill incorporate and become as much responsible as 
the operators are, and the individual locals and men can 
be made to keep their contract in good faith, collective 
bargaining between the union and operators is probably 
better for the kind of labor employed in mining. 

That the miners' officials had become convinced that 
unauthorized strikes were a just cause of complaint on 
the part of both operators and the public, and were 
bringing the union into disrepute, is shown by the terms 
embodied in the wage agreement made in April, 1920. 

Whereas stoppage of work in violation of the agreement 
has become so serious as to menace the success and perpetuity 
of the U. M. W. of A. and our joint relations, this conference 
instructs the respective district executive boards to meet the 
operators for the purpose of agreeing on a penalty clause for 
strikes and violation of agreements. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 119 



Then again, 

The fulfillment of this agreement is guaranteed by the inter- 
national union, and the fulfillment of joint agreements entered 
into in any district shall also be guaranteed by the officers of 
the international organization as well as by the officers of the 
district, and it shall be their duty to see that all such agree- 
ments, are carried out in the letter and spirit. 

, This agreement and guarantee was signed on Thurs- 
day; the next Tuesday's papers carried the headline: 

7,000 DAY-MEN STRIKE AT ILLINOIS MINES. 
So much for the value of the guarantee. 

Ideal Collective Bargaining in a Single Company 

Collective bargaining could be ideal in a company if 
operator and miners were determined to be fair, the 
operator only demanding a reasonable profit, the miners 
ready to work for their mutual benefit and accept such 
wages as| the business can pay. Let us outline such a 
plan. 

The operator and4*epresentatives of the miners meet 
to determine what wages can be paid and what other 
conditions in the mjne are to be observed during a 
period, — for example, for one or two years. The opera- 
tor goes over the various items of cost, — many of 
which, such as depletion, depreciation, workmen's com- 
pensation, and cost' of idle time, had never entered the 
miner's head, — and explains v/hat cost will be if the 
mine is operated all the possible time, and what it will 
be if operated other less number of days ; that is, costs 
exclusive of labor. 

The Miners' representatives present the case of la- 
bor with like estimate of cost of living, comparison 
with other labor, risk of the work, and an amount for 
saving account. 

This sum added to the other items of cost will give 
the normal cost. Many unforseen causes will, no doubt, 
increase that estimate. 



120 COAL 

The selling price of coal cannot be forecast with 
definiteness, unless the government has fixed prices. 

A contract is made on a sliding scale of wages, based 
on this normal wage and normal cost. 

(1) The operator is bound to do all he can to keep 
down all the costs in his itemized list, consistent with 
the full recovery and conservation of his coal. 

(2) The miners bind themselves, legally, to co- 
operate in every possible way to reduce the cost of 
mining, economize the supplies, mine carefully, and re- 
frain from strikes. 

Preparatory to making out the payroll, the officers 
of the coal company and representatives of the miners 
canvass the costs and selling price. 

If the remainder after deducting costs is enough to 
pay labor more than the scale, it is given to the laborers. 
It is better policy to give laborers part of the excess 
and pass the rest to their account. If the remainder is 
not enough to pay the full scale, wages are reduced in 
equal proportion to all. Any surplus to the credit of 
the miner may be used to bring his wages up to the 
scale. 

On the average the men will make more money in 
the year than they would on a regular scale of w!ages. 

Loss from strikes to both operator and men will be 
eliminated. Loss from sympathetic strikes will be 
saved. Union dues will be saved. The men will be 
freemen. 



CHAPTER XIV 

IS THE RIGHT TO STRIKE "iNVIOLABLE" ? DOES MIGHT MAKE 

RIGHT? 

A Vicious Half-Truth— An Individual Right to Quit Work— 
If He Has No Dependents— If He Has Dependents— If He Has 
Contracted to Work, Under What Conditions May He Void 
His Contract?— Group of Employees Who Have Contracted 
to Work — Strike Is a Conspiracy to Do Harm to Operators 
and the Public — Contract Made By Officials of Union Has 
Small Binding Force on Members of Union, Since They Did 
Not Individually Sign the Contract — Small Binding Force on 
Official As Long As They Are Not Legally Responsible. 

"The inviolable right to strike" is the last word in 
the argument as it comes from the President and is 
echoed all down the line of speakers and writers. We 
are startled at the audacity of some farm organizations 
that are daring enough to raise a voice of protest. This 
right to strike has been set up as a test of liberty. Any- 
one who has enjoyed that privilege has had just that 
much more liberty than he ever knew before. 

Stated broadly: "the right to strike is inviolable" is 
a vicious half-truth, which has induced untold material 
damage and mental and bodily suffering. What wrongs 
have been done in the name of this liberty ! This slo- 
gan had its spring in a very sacred human right, — the 
right of a freeman to his own labor. It came from 
our horror of slavery. Abraham Lincoln voiced that 
right in one of his famous speeches : 

When I have seen strong arms plow^ing, sowing, reaping, 
threshing, grinding, baking, I have hoped and believed, that, 
in some way, in God's good time, the hand that feeds the 
mouth might own it. 

The man who argues for inviolability hushes all oppo- 
sition with the challenge, "Would you again make the 

121 



122 COAL 

workingman a slave?" Let us look a little more closely 
at this inviolability claim as an universal truth. 
(1) As applied to an individual laborer. 
The individual quitter is not a striker in the proper 
sense, it takes more than one to conspire, but his rights 
are much like the rights of a group of individuals. 

(a) As to refusing to work at all. If the maxim 
"he that does not v^ork shall not eat" yere strictly 
enforced, there v^^ould be little refusal to work. The 
man who begs on the street is arrested; if he wanders 
about with no attempt to earn a livelihood, he is ar- 
rested as a vagrant. If he has no dependent and keeps 
out of sight of the officers, he may escape work. If, 
however, he has dependents, if. he has married a wife 
and brought children into the world, the court will have 
something to say when he pleads his inviolable right 
to loaf. 

(b) If he engages to work and then quits at his 
own pleasure : In military service it is easy to say what 
will happen. If, as a soldier, he quits, he is a deserter. 
If he quits on the battlefield, he is shot. If he quits in 
the navy, it is mutiny. In civil service, the consequences 
are usually not so serious from quitting as in military 
service, and hence not so severely condemned. In civil 
work, whether he has a right to quit his contract work 
depends on circumstances. The presumption is that 
he does not have that right. The burden of proof to 
show that he has the right lies on him. If he has 
contracted to do work, he is as much bound to work as 
he would be bound to deliver any other merchandise 
which he has sold. His labor is his merchandise, he had 
a right to sell it. He did it freely. His contract to 
work is voidable, it is true, but only on the same grounds 
that any other contract may be voided. (1) If he is 
too ill to work, or he becomes physically unable to ful- 
fill his contract without injury to himself, he is relieved 
of hi^ obligation. An act of God abrogates any con- 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 123 

tract. (2) If there was fraud on the part of his em- 
ployer. Fraud vitiates any contract. (3) If he has 
hired for a long term of service, and circumstances 
which could not have been foreseen arise, which make 
it impossible to carry out his contract, such as very 
high cost of living, and noi concession will be made by 
his employer, the time may come when the religious 
command "swear to your own hurt and change not'' is 
not binding. This last is in essence the foundation 
upon which strikers base their defense. 

(2) As applied to a group of organized or unorgan- 
ized employees. This is the only sense in which the 
term strike is used. A strike is conspiracy, and hence 
could only apply to a group; not, of course, that every 
group of people combining to do a certain thing is a 
conspiracy in the accepted meaning of the term. A 
conspiracy is a combination to do an illegal or morally 
wrong thing. Every strike is without any doubt such 
a conspiracy. 

(1) A conspiracy against the operators. It is a 
combination of a group of employees to do such harm 
to the employers that they will be forced to grant their 
demands. It takes the employer's property and de- 
stroys it. Often the destruction is patently and malic- 
iously done. But even if no violence is committed, the 
strikers take from the employer interest on his invest- 
ment during the strike, his overhead expenses, cost of 
keeping property in repair and restoring it to a work- 
ing condition, and loss of legitimate profit. These 
losses can never be recovered. It is not so apparent 
as is destruction of machinery or tipple but it is as real 
as if the sums thus lost were converted into govern- 
ment bonds and burnt. But, it is objected "the em- 
ployees do not create this loss, they simply quit work. 
It is the misfortune of the employer to have a plant 
that will not operate without labor. Or rather, it is 
the misfortune of the plant to be owned by a stubborn 



124 COAL 



or unjust operator/' They do not "quit work*' in the 
proper sense of the word. If they did, they would 
bundle up their effects and move to other fields or 
engage in other work. They do nothing of the kind. 
They attempt to hold their places open so that they 
can return to them when they get ready. They use 
every means possible to prevent others from filling 
their places. They would be the most disappointed 
people in the world if the mine is dismantled and they 
are forced to "quit working'' m reality. No, a strike 
is just a holdup, a "stand and deliver." It says to the 
operator : "You must employ us to work for you ; 
you must pay us our price whether you are able or 
not, and until you agree to do it we will do you such 
damage that you will be forced to yield." 

(2) Every coal strike is a conspiracy against the 
public. Not that, in general, there is any malice in it 
toward the people ; not that the strikers seek to extort 
money from the public. Most; employees believe that 
coal barons have such vast profits that they can ab- 
sorb all increase of cost and not pass it on to the con- 
sumer. As far as they think of consumers at all, they 
think of them as the revolver that they point at the 
head of the operator to compel him to pay the de- 
mand and resume operation. Notwithstanding the fact 
that a strike is not aimed at the public in malice, yet 
it is a conspiracy that always works damage to some 
part of the public, and often untold suffering and misery. 

It would be a senseless official of a miners' union 
who would order a strike that would not produce in- 
convenience and damage to some consumer. If nobody 
needed coal, operators wouldn't want to operate, couldn't 
operate, and couldn't pay any wage, much less an in- 
creased wage. A time is chosen, if possible, when 
demand 'for coal is most urgent, — as in the middle of 
winter in 1919, when shortage of coal was pronounced 
a calamity. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 125 

A "conspiracy to accomplish a selfish purpose" is a 
harsh sentence. Use milder, softer words if possible, 
but they must mean the same thing. We want to use 
as soft words as we can for we are applying it to hard 
working, good citizens, just and honest in their private 
relations, and worthy of our respect. The mine work- 
ers' contract was made, as they insisted, in collective 
bargaining. It gives them solidarity, better terms, in 
their contract, and greater strength in a strike, yet 
that very fact makes the contract sit more lightly upon 
them. A contract made and signed by their officers 
in a distant city, by men whom they never saw, to 
the breaking of which there is no penalty, sits lightly 
on the conscience. They say: "The men who signed 
the contract know the extent of its binding force and 
have a right to absolve us from its operation by a 
word.'' If every worker had signed for himself, it 
would seem more binding. The great majority of the 
miners would not violate a contract to which they have 
set their own hand and seal. And their officers would 
hesitate long if they were made legally responsible. 

A so-called strike at the end of a contract season. 
It may be that a cessation if work at the end of a 
contract season can scarcely be called a strike. 

Ordinarily, a month or more before the end of the 
contract season in a union field, operators and the 
officials of the miners' union begin to bargain for a 
new contract. If they have not agreed at the time of 
the 'end of the contract, in the anthracite field the men 
continue to v/ork while bargaining is still carried on. 
That is the reasonable thing to do. They know that 
they will continue to work under some contract. They 
have committed their case to their 'union officials, and 
the award will no doubt be retroactive to the end of the 
contract season, and by continuing to work they will not 
}os<e the wages for idle time^ 



126 COAL 

In the bituminous field, if no new contract has been 
made at the end of the old one, the men quit work. 
The anthracite men do more wisely; but there is no 
compulsion on the men. As long as there is no con- 
spiracy to do harm, it is scarcely a strike. At first it 
is a kind of -^stock taking." It is a time to invoice 
conditions, a time to weigh new cost of living, and 
measure it against former wages. 

The workers are no more to be condemned than 
are operators who shut down to install new machinery. 
Any loss to the operators may reasonably be charged 
up as being incidental to the business of coal mining. 
Miners cannot be blamed if they insist with a good 
deal of energy that their places be left open to them. 
But when a reasonable time has elapsed, when not to 
operate is a loss not properly incident to mining, the 
operators have a right to say to their former em- 
ployees : 

*'Let us reason together. If we cannot give what 
you can afford to take, then you must not hinder others 
from working for us who can accept what we are able 
to pay." 

We say they ought to be able to say that much, and 
proceed to operate with other labor. 

But they cannot do anything of the kind as matters 
are now. The United Miners' Union has a monopoly 
of nearly all mine labor in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, In- 
diana, Illinois, Kansas, and Iowa. If the Miners' Union 
would give the operator the '^privilege" of hiring other 
than union men, he would have to go outside of those 
States, at least for skilled miners. The two contentions 
on the part of the miners are: (1) we cannot quit 
mining and go into other lines of employment, since 
mining is our business, we have learned and know no 
other business; (2) since we must work in the mines 
our only weapon of defense is the right to strike. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 127 



This last is virtually a confession that striking is 
conspiracy to inflict damage; but a plea in justification: 
"The end justifies the means." To the plea that a miner 
has learned the business and knows no other, the opera- 
tor may justly reply : 

**You learned the business in my mine. I paid you, 
under the unions demands, the wages of a skilled worker 
when you were unskilled. I bore with many mistakes 
and your inexperience. We have given you exclusive 
claim on your place. We have paid you good wages 
while you are learning. Your union has monopolized 
tne labor market. You owe us consideration." 

Many individual miners accept that fact, but can- 
not act on it so long as the officials of the union do 
not declare the strike off. It goes on for months, — 
a year in Ohio, when the miners struck for the mine 
run weighing law. It goes on in Colorado in the midst 
of rebellion in attempt to unionize the mines, where 
the issue was not wages at all, but a consuming de- 
sire on the part of the union officials to have more 
members in the union, so that more fees could be col- 
lected to swell the balance in the union treasury. Such 
things ought not to be. Surely some way such as we 
have before outlined must be devised by which a just 
and intelligent court may settle these large strikes and 
prevent the thousands of petty annoying strikes for 
every imaginable and unimaginable excuse. 



CHAPTER XV 

INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY IN THE MINING INDUSTRY 

Syndicalism in England — Syndicalism in the United States — 
Results of Syndicalism: Wastefulness, Coal Supply Absolutely 
in Hands of Miners, Unlimited Wages — Co-operative Coal Min- 
mg — Miners Own a Mine and Operate ^^Democratically" — Min- 
ers Lease a Mine and Operate "Democratically" — Example of 
Such Company in Indiana — Result Disappointing — Theoretical 
Advantages : Operator May Be Paid a Fair Compensation, 
Miner Gets All His Product Will INet Him, It Settles Labor 
Disputes — Weak Points : Inexperience of Miners in Manage- 
ment, Too Little Working Capital, Mine Wastefully, Mine 
Labor Is Too Restless and Can Bear Neither Plenty Nor 
Scarcity — A Company-Owned Mine, Managed Democratically — 
Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. 

Democracy is the name to conjure with. President 
Wilson says, "Industry must be made democratic," and 
all down the line it goes. One wonders what definite 
thing is meant. Very few mean anything definite. It 
ought to mean that industry in this democratic nation 
should be conducted in a way befitting a great, right- 
eous, democratic people. It is safe to say that no man 
in the world has thought out to the end what it will 
mean to us if it be driven to the extreme demanded by 
the miners in Great Britain, — the extreme which is in 
the hope of a large element in the mining industry in 
this country. It means nationalization of the mines, 
then syndicalism. 

First. Syndicalism in England 
The Miners' Federation in England demanded na-. 
tionalization of the mines, and "while you wait," a six- 
hour day and thirty per cent increase in wages. A 
royal commission, called the Sankey Commission, 
granted them a seven-hour day in 1920 and a six-hour 
day thereafter, a large increase in wages, and declared 
that: 

128 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 129 



Nationalism or some other system of national purchase and 
joint control must be substituted for the present system of 
ownership. 

The miners demand immediate fulfillment of the 
award. "Mines for the nation V was their slogan, and 
a taking one it is. Yet at a subsequent hearing by the 
commission they disclosed their real purpose. Nation- 
alism is but a stepping-stone to syndicalism. Not mines 
for the nation but mines for the miners was the de- 
mand. They demanded that the nation acquire pos- 
session of the mines (it mattered little to them how) 
by issuing low-interest bonds for their purchase. Then 
they demand that the mines, without requiring any 
royalty, be given over to the "Mining Council" of which 
one-half Was to be appointed by the Miners' Federa- 
tion ; that the mining council shall have no power to 
settle wages in the future, except in consultation with 
the Miners' Federation. The Miners' Federation still 
retains the right to strike. 

We see here the amazing proposition that the nation 
pass over to a Soviet, — which is not responsible to any 
government and which knows probably nothing of the 
management of the coal business, — the industry that 
has made England great, industrially and commercially, 
and on which the life of the nation depends. 

Second. Syndicalism in the United States 

It may seem that syndicalism in Great Britain is 
purely an academic subject for us in the United States. 
Let us hope that it may continue to be such. The 
American miners demanded twice as large increase as 
did the British, and in addition to the six-hour day they 
demanded a five-days week, and from time-and-a-half 
to double-time for extra hours. They also commenced 
by demanding that no mine should work more than 
one shift in twenty-four hours. This strange demand 
would often work hardship on the operator, but usually 



130 COAL 



more hardship on the miners than on the operators. In 
a mine that has twice as many men as it has places 
for them to work, half of the men would be idle every 
other day. Each man would only work fifteen hours 
a w,eek or an average of two and a half hours every 
week-day. 

This demand was not finally pressed. It is well 
to reserve some things for another time. Neither was 
nationalization pressed. Officers of the Miners' Union 
denied that they were demanding it. No one knows 
better than union officers that nationalization and ulti- 
mate syndicalism is the coveted goal. The harder the 
terms of settlement at each new contract time, — the 
more miserable they make the life of the operator, — 
the nearer is that goal. The plea for syndicalism is one 
that appeals to the mine worker. Coal in the ground 
was placed there without any work of man. It has 
no value in the ground. All the value it has came to 
it from the labor put upon it, — therefore labor owns it. 

It was said above that no man has fully thought out 
the ultimate consequences of syndicalism of coal. Some 
evident consequences will suffice for our present dis- 
cussion. 

1. Wastefulness in Mining 

This comes about from two causes. First, a lack of 
incentive to conservation. Why should the miner save 
coal? It is not his coal. He only owns what he mines. 
There is enough coal in some mine to last him while 
he wants to Vv^ork. Then the public of the future, why 
should he be solicitous about them? They are perfect 
strangers? Second, lack of Capital. Capital! That is 
the malevolent thing that they have been trying to 
get clear of in all this struggle toward liberty. Per- 
haps the mines are well equipped when taken over. 
No capital is needed, the equipment they think will last 
till the coal is exhausted. Earnings are good, wise 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 131 



operators would not pay it all out in dividends but put 
some to surplus for depreciations. But the miners 
clamor for dividends, and cannot see why large divi- 
dends are not paid if earned. Month by month the 
subtle forces of destruction are at work. Poorer equip- 
ment makes more costly and decreased production. De- 
creased output will make reduced profits and reduced 
dividends. Reduced dividends bring grumbling, then 
mutiny. Output must- be increased and to do it, "easy" 
coal must be mined wastefully. 

Syndicalism makes impossible that heroic work that 
every great industry does every now and then when 
managed by shrewd men backed by capital. An inter- 
esting instance of such "wrecking for profit'' or '"wast- 
ing to save" is given by Charles W. Schwab in his 
reminiscences of Andrew Carnegie. 

Mr. Schwab had built a new converting mill for 
the Carnegie Company. When it was done he took 
Mr. Carnegie out to see it. As they were looking over 
the mill, Mr. Carnegie said : 

"I can see by your expression that you are disap- 
pointed. There is something wrong with this mill." 

Mr. Schwab answered: 

"No, it is just what I told you it would be. But if 
I had to do it over again, there is one thing which has 
just recently been discovered that I would introduce, 
and I am sure it would result in further economy." 

Whereupon Carnegie asked: 

"Can you change this mill?" 

"It would mean tearing this down and rebuilding it." 

"That is the right thing to do," said Carnegie. "Tear it 
down and do it over_ again." 

And although that mill had been running only tv;u 
months it was torn down and rebuilt, and the return upon 
the capital thus expended repaid the firm manyfold. 

When the time comes when a steam plant in good 
condition could be replaced with great advantage in 



132 COAL 



economy by an electric installment, or by installing an 
equipment for receiving power from a central station, 
it takes capital to do, it. If money could be made by 
burning their coal in byproduct ovens it takes a good 
deal of capital. If it is economy of power to throw 
away old cars and buy ball-bearing cars it again takes 
capital. 

2. Coal Supply Will Be Absolutely in the Hands of 
the Miners' Union 

The union now has the monopoly in mine labor in 
unionized fields. Not a car of coal can come out of a 
unionized mine except by indulgence of the union affi- 
cials. The unions then will have a monopoly of coal. 
The unions reserve the right to strike. What control 
can be more complete? A strike is both a strike and 
a lockout, for the union is both operator and miner. 
A strike against its own award by the union or a 
strike against nothing in the v/orld, cuts off indefinitely 
all coal supply except what miners mine for their own 
use. No such procedure is imaginable it is said. It 
might help the imagination a little to recall what did 
take place in the middle of the winter of 1919. The 
public was not in the tender thoughts of the officials 
of the union. But in some localities miners, who were 
suffering from cold, petitioned operators that they be 
allovv^ed to mine coal for themselves but not for the 
operators or the people. 

3. Unlimited Wage Fixing 

In the British scheme, *'The Mining Council has no 
pov/er to fix w^ages except in conference with the Fed- 
eration of Labor." Imagine, if you can, a Miners' 
Union coming to a council, one-half of whose members 
are miners, and making a demand for sixty per cent 
advance, or any other per cent and any schedule of 
hours, and being turned down. The miner buys his 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 133 

OAvn labor at his own price, and passes the cost on to 
the consumer-public who has no defense. 

In fact, the public has a defense. The time would 
come when senseless strikes and mounting costs would 
become unbearable, and the people would rise in their 
righteous strength and s^veep away the intolerable op- 
pression, and restore a reign of reason and sane gov- 
ernment. 

Third. Co-operative Coal Mining 

A co-operative coal mining company is as nearly a 
^'democratic" mining company as can be found. As in 
a democracy, every member of such a company has one 
vote and only one. The members have an equal inter- 
est in the success of the business. Theoretically it 
leaves nothing to be desired on the part of labor. No 
profiteering on the fruits of toil. It is the nearest 
approach we have to ''mines for the mxiners.'' 

There are two kinds of co-operative com.panies. 

1. A company of miners owning a mine and oper- 
ating it "democratically.'' This kind of company is rare 
and the operation small. A company of miners cannot 
generally raise enough money to buy a valuable mine 
unless the owning company is in financial distress. 

2. A company of miners leasing a mine and working 
it '"democratically." 

The method of procedure may be illustrated by the 
example of a co-operative coal mining company organ- 
ized in Indiana. By permission of the Outlook some 
portions of an article written in 1909 by the present 
waiter, who was president of the owning company, will 
be given. 

An experiment was inaugurated in a mine near Terre Haute, 
Indiana, which has some features that are unique. The plant 
with which the experiment was made consisted of a coal vein 
seven and a half feet thick, the mine capable of producing 
five hundred tons a day and capable of being developed in a 
few months to double that amount. The mine was equipped 



134 COAL 



with modern machinery. The mine was near a good market, 
good coal, conditions of top and bottom such that miners can 
produce an unusually large amount of coal per day. 

The miners were mostly Americans, more than ordinarily 
intelligent. The miners entered into negotiations with the 
owners of the mine for a lease for a year, with privilege of 
renewal. The officers of the mining company agreed to lease 
on terms most liberal to the miners, in order that they might 
be encouraged to make the experiment. Looking to the safe- 
guarding of the property, the following provisions were em- 
bodied in the lease : 

V First, the miners shall form a corporation with legal re- 
sponsibility. 

, Second, all supplies for repairs about the mine and all 
labor must be paid in cash. This was necessary so that no 
labor or material liens could be entered against the property. 

Third, the mine must be operated in accordance with best 
engineering practice. The mine must be kept in good physical 

condition. 

^^■^^ 

The compensation to the mine owners was to be determined 
as follows : First, rails, props and other necessary supplies 
shall be bought out of gross receipts for coal sold. Second, for 
three months, miners and all laborers employed in producing 
coal shall be paid in full in accordance with the scale govern- 
ing the Miners Union in the Terre Haute district before any 
profits shall be distributed. Third, for three months, the les- 
sor company shall receive one-fourth of the net profits after 
deducting wages and expenses. If there are no profits the 
ov/ners of the mine receive nothing for the coal taken out, 
or use of their machinery. Fourth, after three months, the 
lessor company shall receive five cents a ton and one-fourth 
of the net profits after deducting wages and expenses. 

The mining company adopted by-laws containing the usual 
provisions and the following distinctive ones: 

1. All stockholders must sign these by-laws. 

2. No debts shall be incurred by this Company. Purchases 
must be made only for cash. 

3. The association and members of the association shall 
be governed by the Terre Haute agreement concerning wages 
and mme conditions. 

1* Fu^^I P?^so,^ working in or around the mine shall be 
a stockholder in the Union Mining Association. 

5, Every stockholder agrees to divide losses accruing from 
the operation of the mine, and hereby instructs the book- 
keeper of the company to check off his wages any losses which 
accrue to said company by reason of the operation of the mine 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 135 



6 Every stockholder hereby agrees to have the bookkeeper 
check off his wages the sum of five dollars to pay for one 
share of stock in the Union Mining Association. 

7. Any member shall have the right to give up his mem- 
bership by assigning his certificate of stock back to the Treas- 
urer of the company. His membership fee shall not be re- 
turned to him. Only one share of stock shall be issued to the 
same member, and each member shall have only one vote. 

8. Each member hereby agrees to hold no other member, 
or the association as a body, responsible for his death or any 
accident which may befall him during his work in or around 

the mine. r n-i_ • i 

They started with a membership of eighty-five. The capital 
stock of Four hundred and twenty-five dollars was too small, 
but a large capital is not necessary, as the principal outlay of 
money in coal mining is for miners* wages. And in the mat- 
ter pf wages, the men need not pay themselves till they get 
the money, but they sold for cash. 

They elected seven directors from their members. The di- 
rectors elected President, Secretary-Manager, Treasurer, and 
Snles Agent. The only salaried officer was the Secretary- 
Manager, who received one hundred dollars a month with his 
salary subject to assessment in case of loss. 

The mine ran steadily while other mines in the locality 
were running three or four days in the week. The first half 
month the receipts for coal just paid expenses, wages in full, 
but owners got no profits. The second half month, the receipts 
paid expenses, miners 'wages in full, and sixty-six dollars for 
repairs. The next three half months the receipts were not 
enough to pay full wages. The assessment ran one-half month 
as high as twenty-five per cent. But even at that, owing to 
greater number of days operated, the amount received by the 
men was nearly twice as much as men in other mines received.- 
Before the end of the three months they disbanded their or- 
ganization and surrendered the lease. 

Method of Settling Disputes 

The outcome of this experiment is disappointing. It 
is true it was undertaken at a time of depression in the 
coal business. But the coal, machinery, and equipment 
were given to them absolutely during the time they con- 
tinued to operate. The failure certainly is not chargeable 
to profiteering barons. No doubt such companies, if they 
succeeded, would solve some of the serious problems of 
the' coal business. 



136 COAL 

1. If a small minimum royalty is paid the owner, 
enough to cover depletion, depreciation, and interest, he 
does not throw away his coal absolutely as he often does in 
the ordinary way of operating. Also, by a moderate shar- 
ing in the profits when they are earned, it helps to com- 
pensate him for the use of his money and brains in a 
hazardous business. 

2. It gives the miner for his wages all that the pro- 
duct of his labor fairly brings in the market. In a good 
market his wages are automatically raised in his increased 
profits. In a low market he gets more steady work and 
makes a better monthly wage than is made by other min- 
ers working at a higher wage and fewer days. 

3. It settles all labor disputes. The hard-and-fast 
scale fixed by the union, which keeps the men idle rather 
than allow them to work at a wage which the market can 
stand, is released. The miners are now free men. 

4. It thus conserves two of the most valuable resources 
of the nation, — life and coal. The owner gets something 
for his coal. The miner, instead of being idle and losing 
that many days from his life, redeems the days which he 
now works instead of being idle. 

Some Weak Points in Co-operative Coal Mining 

1. It is one thing to be able to mine coal and bring 
it to the surface, and quite a different thing to manage 
such a complex industry as the coal business. A striking 
illustration of that fact was furnished by a partnership 
formed a few years ago, by five of the most expert mining 
men in Western Pennsylvania, to operate and manage a 
mine in the Middle West. The outcome was disastrous ; 
thousands of dollars were sunk in the project, because their 
experience and skill were below ground, while a mine is 
managed above ground. 

2. Coal mining requires large operating capital to be 
profitable. Betterments, new devices, nev/ requirements 
by the government, sales made on time, — all these require 
a large working capital. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 137 



3. Such companies mine wastefully, they do not keep 
the mine in good condition, they leave coal in the mine 
that ought to be recovered. The coal is not theirs. 

4. The character of a large proportion of mine labor : 
They do not settle down at one place for a life work ; 
they squander their time and money ; if wages are good, 
they either spend as they go or, if they accumulate some 
money, they lie off until expenses catch up with profits. 
Then when times of low profit come, they have no money 
to supplement scant wages, and they either drift away 
or become centers of rebellion, and finally wreck the com- 
pany. 

The conclusion seems to be that, except in very ex- 
ceptional cases in small co-operative companies, the old 
way of operating is better for miners and owners alike. 

A company strong financially, strong in the ability to 
manage, operate, and market its coal, content with fair 
profits that the business deserves, paying its men all it 
can afford vv^hile it conserves its coal, conserves its men's 
lives and furnishes them good living conditions, cannot be 
matched by the ordinary co-operative company. 

^Fourth, A Company-Owned Mine That Is Managed 

Democratically 

In a nation that is democratic, citizens, irrespective 
of race, creed, color, or association, are, in matters per- 
taining to their rights, entitled to representation by men 
chosen by ballot and given power to speak on their be- 
half in matters that concern their welfare. 

A democratic mining company must, as nearly as the 
conditions will warrant, assure to every employee, irrespec- 
tive of race, color, creed, and political or union af^liation, 
representation with reference to his employment, and work- 
ing and living conditions. 

The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, in 1916, sub- 
mitted to its employees a plan, which was adopted almost 



138 COAL 



unanimously by them, and which seems to have embodied 
these principles very well. 

1. In the matter of discrimination between employees: 

There shall be no discrimination by the company or by any 
of its employees on account of m.embership or non-membership 
in any society, fraternity or union. 

This is essential in a true democratic industry. 

2. In the matter of election of employees' representa- 
tives. 

The mines of the company are divided into districts, 
each district elects by ballot representatives, one for each 
one hundred and fifty employees. Conferences are held 
between these representatives and the officers of the com- 
pany at least every four months. 

These conferences discuss freely matters of mutual interest 
and concern to the company and its employees, embracing 
suggestions to promote increased efficiency and production, to 
improve working and living conditions, to avoid friction and 
promote cordial relations betv^een the company and employee. 

3. Annual joint meeting of all employees' representa- 
tives and officers of the company. 

Reports are made by the several joint committees, and 
matters concerning the common interest of company and 
employees, requiring collective action are considered. 

4. At the beginning of each year joint committees on 
industrial relations are selected for each cfistrict. These 
are permanent committees, and four in number for each 
district. Each committee is composed of six members, 
three selected by the employees and three by the company. 

(a) Joint committee on safety and accidents. 

This deals with inspection of mines, prevention of 
accidents, safe-guarding machinery and dangerous work- 
ing-places, use of explosives, fire protection, and first aid. 

(b) Joint Committee On Sanitation, Health, and 

Housing 
This deals with hospitals, physicians, nurses, occupa- 
tional diseases, tuberculosis, sanitation^ water supply, 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 139 



sewage systems, garbage disposal, street cleaning, houses 
as homes, rent, gardens, and fencing. 

(c) Joint Committee On Recreation and Education 
This deals with club houses, halls, playgrounds, enter- 
tainments, athletics, field days, holidays, schools, libraries, 
classes for foreigners, technical education, lectures, 
churches, Sunday schools, Y. M. C. A., and classes in first 
aid. 

(d) Joint Committee On Industrial Co-operation And 

Conciliation 

They may, of their own initiative, or have referred to 
them by the President at any time throughout ithe year, 
any matter pertaining to prevention or settlement of indus- 
trial disputes, terms and conditions of employment, main- 
tenance of order or other differences. 

Method of Settling Disputes 

(1) Any employee or group of employees having a 
complaint or grievance may, either directly or through the 
employees' committee, take it up with the officers of the 
company. If they fail to adjust the differences, upon re- 
quest by the employees' representatives, or upon the initia- 
tive of the president, the difference shall be referred to the 
joint committee on industrial co-operation and conciliation 
of the district, and the decision of the majority of the 
committee shall be binding on all parties. 

This board, it is to be remembered, is equally com- 
posed of miners' representatives and company representa- 
tives. 

If this board cannot agree, they may do either of three 
things. 

First. They may select an um.pire to sit with them, and 
his decision is binding on all the parties. 

Second. They may submit the question to arbitration, 
employees and the company each appointing one and they 
a third if the two cannot agree. 



140 COAL 

Third. They may ask the industrial commission of 
the State to appoint all the arbitrators, or itself arbitrate 
the difference. This plan, of which the foregoing is a 
skeleton, seems as near a democratic control as can well 
be devised, and one which it would, as far as circumstances 
permit, be well if all mining companies adopted. 

It is to be noted that in the great strike in 1915 no 
demand was made for more wages or better working con- 
ditions, but it was an effort by the United Mine Workers 
to unionize the mines. 

By agreement, a board of conciliation has served to 
secure peace for twelve years in the anthracite coal field. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE ANTHRACITE FIELD IN PENNSYLVANIA 

Little Need in This Field for Control of Waste— How the 
Anthracite Coal Was Saved from Erosion— How It Became 
Anthracite from Lower-Grade Coal— Description of the Four 
Fields— Causes of Former Waste: Cheap Land, Crude Way of 
Mining, Cheap Royalty, Ignorance of Value, Small Com.mercial 
Value, Because It Would Not Burn, Because It Was Hard to 
Get to Market, Then Overproduction and Waste— Methods of 
Reaching a Market in Cities, From Northern Field, Schuylkill 
Field and Lehigh Field— Efforts to Control Production and 
Price-Cutting — Miners Produced Intermittently — Railroads 
Pooled Coal— Railroads Purchase Coal Land By Indirection- 
Control a Large Part of Independent Output By the ''65 Per 
Cent. Agreement" — Causes That Have Been Eliminated — Low 
Cost of Land — Cost of Weak Companies in Anthracite Mining — 
Sinking Mine — Thin Veins — Pum^ping — Taking Care of Water 
After It Is Pumped — Props and Support for Roof — Supply 
Boiler Water — Ventilating — Fighting Fires — "Manufacture" of 
Coal — Workmen's Compensation — Modern Conveniences — Dura- 
tion of Life of Anthracite. 

I have deferred treatment of this anthracite field till 
now, because avoidable waste in mining has been practi- 
cally eliminated in the entire field. If so, government 
control to stop waste is not necessary. To the public in 
general it is a surprising statement that anthracite mining 
does not need regulating. 

The anthracite operators have been the most investi- 
gated people in the United States. Some members of Con- 
gress are very fond of investigating something. If they 
can think of nothing else to investigate, the proposal to 
call the anthracite Barons to account strikes a popular 
chord. They recall the report of the Pennsylvania Com- 
mission, appointed in 1893 to investigate waste in mining 
that up to that time a ton and a half of anthracite had beer, 
wasted or left in the ground for every ton that was pro- 
duced. 

They charge that railroads own ninety-three per cent 
of the anthracite coal now unmined, and control all the 

141 



142 COAL 

coal except three per cent; that they combine to limit 
output; that they agree among themselves to fix prices. 

All these statements are true, and probably more ab- 
horrent things. Yet, in face of it all, we say, government 
control is not needed in the same sense in which it is 
needed in most of the bituminous field. It is necessary, 
therefore, briefly to review the history of anthracite min- 
ing the difficulties surrounding its early development, which 
led to waste, confusion, loss, and bankruptcy ; its struggles 
toward a stable and sane industry, and the final evolution 
of the present monopolistic control. 

We shall then be in position to answer the questions: 
"Are present conditions warranted, — should government 
intervene to change conditions for the better?" 

In order that we may better be able to follow the dis- 
cussion, it is necessary to give a brief description of the 
anthracite field. 

The Pennsylvania anthracite is the small remnant of 
a very large area of coal land that covered the present 
anthracite fields and extended to the north and west over 
an area at least five or six times as large as the present 
field. This area was comparatively level and covered^ with 
numerous veins, probably more than are left in the deepest 
part of the anthracite field. The coal was not anthracite 
but coal at an earlier stage of development, — bituminous, 
or even lignite and peat. 

Then came the time when a great thrust in the crust 
of the earth set in' from the southeast, creasing that entire 
area into waves of rocks with their included coal veins. 

Then came the great ice sheet, which, moving down 
from the north, and northeast, like a great carpenter's 
plane, sheared off the tops of the ridges and the other high- 
lying areas, carrying with it the easily eroded rocks and 
coal. Fortunately, areas totaling about four hundred anH 
eighty- four square miles in extent lay deep down in the 
folds between ridges of very hard rock, which resisted the 
cutting plane and saved four detached fields from destruc- 
tion. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 143 



The coal thus saved was transformed into anthracite, 
as the result of these great movements, either according to 
the generally accepted theory, by being robbed of a large 
part of its volatile matter by a coking process from the 
heat generated by the thrust pressure, or losing its volatile 
matter by a gradual ^'evaporation," through the cracks in 
the overlying crusts. By this upheaving and eroding pro- 
cess, the entire field is divided into four principal basins, 
each surrounded by a rim of mountains: 

(a) Northern or Wyoming Field, extending nearly east 
and west, which contained originally a hundred and sev- 
enty-six square miles. 

(b) Eastern Middle field, lying about fifteen miles 
south and southwest of the Wyoming Field, which con- 
tained originally thirty-three square miles. 

(c) Western Middle Field, containing originally ninety- 
four square miles. 

(d) Schuylkill Field, south and almost parallel to the 
western middel field originally containing one hundred and 
eighty square miles. 

For trade description, the entire area is divided into 
three fields: 

( 1 ) Wyoming. 

(2) Lehigh, including Eastern Middle Field and the 
part of the Schuylkill east of the Schuylkill River. 

(3) Schuylkill, including the Western Middle Field, 
and the part of the Southern Field lying west of the 
Schuylkill River.* (See Map.) 

The Pennsylvania anthracite field, small as it is com- 
pared with the various bituminous areas, is the largest, 
most valuable proved field of anthracite in the world. In 
fact, most of the so-called anthracite of which we read 
is not anthracite at all, according to the Pennsylvania 
standard, but semi-bitumuinous, or some other coal of 
higher volatile content. 



144 COAL 



Knowing its limited amount and high intrinsic value, 
we would wonder that there should have been waste and 
need of control in the past. 

1. Some Causes of Excessive Waste in the Early Mining 

(a) Cheap coal land. In the latter part of the Eigh- 
teenth Century, land was cheap everywhere. The land in 
the anthracite field that was bought was rated at its value 
for farming. Land near what is now Scranton, in the 
heart of the Wyoming basin, underland with eleven veins 
of coal, including the mammouth vein forty to fifty feet 
thick, — was bought for four cents an acre. Tho Connecti- 
cut pioneers paid two or three dollars an acre in the region 
of Wilkes-Barre, because it was more fertile. It was at 
least forty years after the discovery of coal before it com- 
menced to add any value to coal land. Even^ if the owner 
had known that his land was coal land, it would have 
affected him but little as the coal was not rated as of much, 
if any, value. 

(b) The very crude method of mining was most waste- 
ful. As late as 1812 the coal was worked by openings in 
the outcrop, and the coal was hoisted in buckets by rope 
and windlass, worked by hand like the ''Old oaken bucket 
that hung in the well." It was eleven years after when 
power was furnished by a horse working a gin. The open- 
ings could not be driven on the steep slopes more than 
twenty-five or thirty feet without the water coming in, so 
that it could not be. further operated. Then it was aban- 
doned and a new opening made. 

(c) Very cheap royalty after real mining commenced. 
An example is given of a lease in 1814 by the Lehigh Coal 
Company to White, Hazard and Hanto of ten thousand 
acres for twenty years, at a rental of an ear of corn per 
year, if demanded. Of course the Lehigh Company be- 
lieved that coal was so cheap and transportation and mar- 
keting the coal so difficult, that it was worth the output 
for twenty years, if the lessees would overcome those diffi- 
culties and at the end of the lease turn over to it a going 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 145 

profitable concern serving a good market. Nevertheless, 
no such lease can do other than invite wasteful mining of 
*'easy" coal. 

(d) Ignorance of the real value of *'stone coal." The 
name **stone coal" has not been entirely discarded, though 
we are more likely to use the name *'black diamond." 

When writers undertake to tell where anthracite was 
discovered in this or that field, they would better say when 
the black stones were found to be coal. It is probable that 
blocks of the anthracite were not so uncommon in these 
fields. When these basins were formed, the shearing of 
the coal from the tops of the mountain rims surrounding 
them left the strata of coal exposed on the slopes of the 
mountains. From these, blocks of coal would be broken oif 
and washed down toward the streams that were now cut- 
ting their channels through the various fields. The streams 
and rivers would cut through the veins that lay near the 
surface, and thus expose the "blacl^ stone" along the sides 
of the channels. The first recorded finding of anthracite 
seems to have been on the banks of the Susquehanna. 

Though this discovery was made in 1762, no report of 
any use of the coal is given until seven years later, so 
little was it valued as a fuel. 

The discovery made in the Schuylkill field in 1770 that 
the black stone would burn is said to have been accidental. 
A hunter built a fire on some rocks and went to sleep. 
When he awoke he found the rocks a glowing mass of fire. 

(e) Small value of anthracite as a commercial product. 
Unless the coal can be taken to a market, and be used 
there, and if it can be used only in a limited local market 
by blacksmiths, there is little incentive to careful recovery 
of a product of value so small. Some of the difficulties 
in making it a valuable commercial product are as follows : 

(1) Difficulty in introducing anthracite as a domestic 
fuel. The first successful attempt to burn anthracite was 
made in Wilkes-barre in 1769, by a blacksmith, Obadiah 
Gore. Six years later a cargo of Wyoming coal was floated 
down the Susquehanna River to Harrisburg and hauled in 



146 COAL 



wagons to Carlisle to be used in making arms for the 
Revolutionary Army. While the use of anthracite in a 
forge under forced draft made considerable progress, it 
was necessary for the producers to set up grates in public 
houses to show that it would burn in ordinary grates. The 
Lehigh Coal Mining Company, operating in the Lehigh 
Field, experienced the same difficulty. In 1803 six arks 
of coal were sent down the Lehigh River for Philadelphia 
and great difficulty was experienced in selling the two arks 
that escaped wrecking in the river. The City of Phila- 
delphia finally bought the anthracite for use at their water- 
work, but could not get it to burn, and put it on their 
walks for gravelling. In the Schuylkill field as late as 
1812 George Shomaker, of Pottsville, hauled nine loads to 
Philadelphia. He succeeded in selling two, and had to 
give the other seven away. The men to whom he gave the 
coal sought to arrest him as a swindler who was trying to 
sell stone for coal. Disheartening as was this experience, 
one of the two loads, which he sold for cost of transporta- 
tion, produced far reaching results. Messrs. White and 
Hazard bought a load. White spent all morning trying 
to burn the coal. He gave it up in disgust and shut the 
furnace door. When he came back later the heat was so 
great that the furnace was in danger o fmelting. The 
proof that the coal would burn was complete, and White 
and Hazard afterward engaged extensively in anthracite 
mining. 

(2) The early difficulty in getting the coal to market. 
From the southern end of the Wyoming Field shipment 
was made by the Susquehanna River. 

They shipped their coal in arks holding sixty tons, but about 
one ark; out of every three either sank to the bottom or was 
grounded on the rapids. 

Also, as it was not possible to go up the river, they 
had to knock their arks to pieces and sell the wood for 
fuel. As only fine timber could be used in building the 
arks, and only firewood prices could be realized in market. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 147 

it was expensive to build an ark for every sixty tons 
started to market, one-third of them to be wrecked and 
two-thirds sold for firewood. From the northern end of 
the Wyoming field, the Wurtz Brothers tried to ship their 
coal from the Carbondale Mines by way of the Lackawaxen 
and Delaware Rivers to Philadelphia ; but the cost of haul- 
ing from their mines to the Lackawaxen, together with the 
cost and danger of river transportation, was too great. 

The Lehigh field experienced the same difficulty in get- 
ting coal to market. Out of six arks of coal sent down 
the Lehgih River by the Lehigh Coal Mining Company in 
1803, only tv/o reached their destination. 

(f) Efforts to cure these difficulties finally bring waste- 
ful competition. Gradually the people began to under- 
stand how to burn the coal, and a ready market was found 
in the cities. 

It was impossible to reach the markets with the present 
means of transportation. The first attempt at a solution 
was by a combination of gravity, railroads, canals, and 
rivers. 

(1) To reach New York from the northern basin, the 
combination was a gravity railroad sixteen miles long from 
Carbondale to Housedale, a canal to the Hudson, and by 
the Hudson to New York. 

(2) To reach Philadelphia from the Lehigh field the 
combination gravity railroad nine miles long, a canal forty- 
six miles long, a canal forty-six miles long to Easton, and 
the Delaware River to Philadelphia. A curious mistake 
was made in the last link of that combination. The Dela- 
ware locks were smaller than the canal locks, and coal 
for Philadelphia had to be transshipped at Easton. 

(3) To reach Philadelphia from the Schuylkill field 
there is but one link in the transportation : a canal one 
hundred and eight miles long, from Pottsville to Phila- 
delphia. 

These lines of transportation, which were based wholly 
or in part on water transportation failed at the most criti- 
cal times. Floods washed away dams, and when demand 



148 C O A L ~ 

r „=^ 

was greatest in winter, freezing water cut off transporta- 
tion. Then came railroads; until the entire field was cov- 
ered with a network of trunk lines and switches. 

Now that transportation was equal to every demand, 
and that difficulty has disappeared, the great bane of the 
whole coal field began to work its ruin, — overproduction 
and reckless price-cutting. 

At that time it cost little to open a mine. The coal 
outcropped along the slopes of the rims of the basins. 
The railroads that were then sending out spurs in all 
directions were eager for freight, and encouraged the 
opening of a mine wherever it gave promise of furnish- 
ing more freight. Over development and price-cutting 
brought their usual crop of financial distress. To add to 
the distress, many purely speculative companies were or- 
ganized. 

They paid high wages, opened mines wastefuUy, over- 
developed the industry, claimed large profits and on the strength 
of their large output and inflated profits, sold out just when 
overproduction was beginning to bring its inevitable result, 
ruinous competition and with it waste. 

Operators could not stop producing, as overhead and 
interest charges would drive them into bankruptcy; but 
the more they produced the worse. Because the Civil 
War, — when it came, — caused temporary relief. Anthra- 
cite prices advanced to two and three prices of normal 
times. Profits were large. Then came the usual result, — 
many new mines w^ere opened and railroads built to them. 

When the war ended, prices collapsed and fell to half 
their normal rate. 

II. Methods Adopted By Miners, Operators and Rail- 
roads to Bring Order and Stability Out of This Chaos 

(a) Miners voluntarily reduce production until demand 
catches up. The miners would not have their wages re- 
duced to meet the reduced price of coal. They didn't call 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 149 

it a strike but just a suspension of work until the surplus 
was used up and a demand came for more coal, then they 
resumed work at the old wages. 

This prevented further decline in the price of coal, but 
it did not much help the operators ; cost of idleness had 
to be paid and no profit. Then began the movements that 
by many devious ways have reached the present monopoly 
by the railroads. 

(b) Pool of Railroad freight. This was the first 
experiment in control. The railroads (1) made an esti- 
mate of the amount of coal that would be needed at com- 
petitive points, as at tidewater. (2) They divided this 
amount among themselves according to the amount of coal 
produced on each road. (3) They fixed prices at these 
competitive points which gave op.^.ators and railroads a 
profit. (4) They fixed a fine of $1.50 for every ton that 
any railroad shipped beyond its quota. This pooling ar- 
rangement worked fairly well for three years, at the end 
of which time it was dissolved. Then followed a renewal 
of former conditions of overproduction and waste. 

Prices fell very low ; four railroads suspended divi- 
dends, and the others paid small dividends. For twenty- 
five years, up to 1898, the anthracite field Vvas the scene 
of successive pools, ''gentlemen's agreements," followed 
by dissolutions, disaster, and waste. Operators saw their 
coal wasted and themselves in a constant state of incipient 
bankruptcy. The railroads saw the freight upon which 
their life depended being wasted and their patrons im- 
poverished. These temporary expedients have proved in- 
efficient ; some radical change must be made. 

(c) Purchase of coal lands by the railroad combine. 
It would do the railroads no good to own coal land, if 
they cannot mine and sell the coal. 

The present Constitution of Pennsylvania prohibits a 
railroad from mining and selling coal, except where its 
charter granting it that right antedates the Constitution. 



150 COAL 



The Lackawanna and Western is the only railroad in 
that field that could own and mine its own coal, since its 
charter granting that privilege antedates the Constitution. 

The only way open to the other railroads was to do by 
indirection what they could not do directly. That indirect 
way was to own in combination a corporation with charter 
rights broad enough to enable the roads through it to buy 
land, mine coal, and market it. The history of the way 
in which that object was accomplished is very interesting 
but it would carry us too far from our present purpose. 
A most interesting account of the whole transaction is given 
by Elliot Jones in 'The Anthracite Coal Combination/' 
the y formed the Temple Iron Company, whose amended 
charter gave the right 

to purchase, lease, hold, mortgage real estate and mining 
rights, prove and open mines, prepare and transport coal to 
market, and dispose of the same, and do all such acts and 
things as a successful and consistent prosecution of said busi- 
ness may require. 

By use of this company they gradually bought coal land 
and mines until they owned ninety-three per cent of the 
anthracite field. 

(d) Make with independent operators a perpetual con- 
tract to buy all their output at a fixed percentage of the 
selling price. 

This is what is generally called the *'sixty-five" per 
cent contract, because all coal above a certain size called 
"pea" coal is to be paid for at sixty-five per cent of its 
selling price near New York, though smaller coal carries 
a less percentage. 

The principal terms of the contracts are as follows: 

(1) The seller sells and agrees to deliver on cars to the 
buyer all the anthracite coal hereafter mined from any of its 
mines now opened or hereafter opened or operated. 

This Section is like the proposed contract with the 
selling agencies in the bituminous fields. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 151 



(2) Shipments to be made from time to time as called for 
by the buyer. The buyer to arrange to take coal, as nearly as 
possible, in equal daily quantities. To try to find buyers so 
that each mine shall have as many days work as other mines 
similarly situated. 

This Section limits output to demand, aims to cure the 
industry of its spasmodic production, and to spread the 
production over the entire field. 

(3) The buyer agrees not to discriminate in favor of one 
mine over the other, but shall order monthly a just propor- 
tion from each, of the entire quantity agreed upon by the buyer. 

Our proposed selling agency in the bituminous field is 
required to do like justice to each mine. 

The next Section is the sixty-five per cent Section, and 
is the price controlling contract. It appears, therefore, 
that the railroads, (a) have a monopoly of the anthracite 
mining industry, (b) In doing indirectly what, if done 
directly, is illegal, mining and selling coal through the 
mining companies whose stock they own or control or 
through the holding companies which nominally own both 
the roads and their affiliated mines, (c) They limit and 
control output. (A certain Mayor some time ago wrote to 
the President and charged that anthracite mines were not 
operating to capacity, and asked for an investigation to see 
if they could not be compelled to operate full time. He 
is representative of the many who want all our resources 
used up as fast as possible whether they are demanded for 
economical use or not.) (d) They regulate and fix prices. 
No great industry, like the anthracite mining, can con- 
tinue to live if it does not return a fair compensation to 
producer and a fair wage to labor. The cut-throat prices 
that ruled at times in this field ruined operators, made them 
unable to pay decent wages to labor, did not, in the long 
run, benefit consumer, and wasted the coal. 

Any fair-minded man, after comparing the past with 
the present in the anthracite field will agree that railroad 
control has been its salvation. 



152 COAL 



(1) The railroads are benefited both in the stabiHty 
of freight conditions, and in the increased Hfe of the in- 
dustry and longer continuance of their profit from freight. 

(2) The independent companies are benefitted, since 
they have a well-regulated production, a fair price for 
their coal, are saved the cost of a selling agency, and have 
their coal marketed without worry. 

(3) The public is protected. The railroads have their 
coal mined carefully and skillfully, and thus conserve it. 
The independent operators mine their coal economically 
without waste; they get a price for their coal that enables 
them now to take out all the coal which can be mined at 
all. The consumer does not pay on the average as much 
as he would have to pay in an unstable market. 

Mining anthracite coal now is a science. Only men 
skilled in meeting the special conditions here can do the 
work at all. Only strong companies under most capable 
men can afford to mine in this field. Are these powerful 
companies doing all that can be done to conserve coal? 

The three causes of waste which were mentioned in 
connection with mining in the bituminous fields and which 
were present in the anthracite field in the beginning are 
absent now : 

(1) The coal land is too valuable to be wasted. "We 
are mining coal almost regardless of cost," says one Super- 
intendent. 

(2) The operating companies are strong financially, 
and are not forced to mine easy coal to keep out of the 
hands of the Receiver. 

(3) By agreement to limit output, prices are kept 
at a high enough rate to justify economical methods' in the 
mine. 

The following are some of the difficulties in anthracite 
mining and the various sources of cost, which have to be 
met : 

(1) The expense of sinking and equipping a modern 
mine. Most of the field can be worked from mines al- 
ready sunk, but when a shaft has to be sun^, it has now 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 153 

to be located in the most difficult and hazardous site. The 
difficulty encountered in sinking a shaft now is illustrated 
by the experience of a company which sunk a shaft a> few 
years ago in the fiat lands of the Susquehanna River, which 
are only a few feet above water level and are overflowed 
every year. The borings showed that they: must go 
vhrough sand, gravel, and quicksand. After going a little 
below the surface they found that water stood in the 
shaft at the river level, and that water coming in through 
the gravel and sand could only be kept out by a concrete 
lining seven feet in thickness and one thousand feet deep. 
After the coal is reached, the expense is by no means ended. 
Millions of dollars are now needed to reach the lower 
veins, where thousands were enough to reach the shallow 
veins that are now exhausted. 

(2) The difficulty and expense of mining the thin 
veins. Thin veins, which would not have been touched 
in the early mining, are now being mined. In veins two- 
and-a-half feet thick the gangways and main haulage- ways 
have to be made of standard height and width. This 
necessitates the mining of large amount of rock and tak- 
ing it up out of the mine. Rock mining is very expensive. 
About thirty per cent of the coal that is bemg mined in 
the northern field is in veins two-and-one-half feet thick. 
Another large increase in the cost of mining thin veins 
is in the large labor cost. The output from a thin vein 
is much less in a day than from a thick vein. The miners 
have to be paid more per ton. Operators can only aflford 
to mine such veins at all by mining at the same time 
thicker veins and averaging the cost. 

It is mine the thin vein now or never! They cannot 
aflFord to come back after the thick veins are mined and 
take the thin veins ; besides, they will probably be wrecked 
in mining the thick veins alone. 

Mr. Dorrance, Superintendent of the Hudson Coal 
Company, said; 



154 COAL 



I went into a mine near Scranton to look it over with ref- 
erence to spending some money to clean and prepare the coal 
from that mine. There is nothing left in that mine except one 
vein of coal, and we walked the whole morning, looking at the 
quality of that vein. Out of the six feet which would have 
to be mined, there was a foot and a half of coal. Out of the 
six feet which had to be mined, less than twenty per cent 
was coal which could be sent to market. The cost of pro- 
duction is five times what it would be if the vein were all coal. 

(3) Taking care of the water in the mines. To pump 
the water from the mines, nine hundred powerful pumps 
are at work, some of them costing $30,000.00. They are 
capable of hoisting five hundred billion gallons a year. In 
addition to the pumps, some of the mines use immense 
tanks holding from two thousand to three thousand gallons 
each, which may be hoisted every forty seconds. After 
a vein is exhausted, the water originating in it must be 
pumped out continuously, because it finds its way to the 
lower veins that are being worked, or may break through 
and swamp veins on the same level. For every ton of 
coal, now mined, on the average thirteen and a half tons 
of water must be hoisted. In times of heavy water from 
melting snow or flood, mining is suspended, and all the 
steam-generating capacity is used on water alone. Sufifi- 
cient horsepower is used at the anthracite mines to drive 
at full speed continuously all the battleships of our navy. 
One-eighth of all the coal mined is used up to make steam. 
In addition to the pumps, the drainage pipes that bring the 
water to the pumps are an enormous expense, not only 
first cost but cost of renewal, since they are constantly 
being eaten up by the sulphur in the water. 

(4) Taking care of the water after it is out of the 
mine. It must^not pollute watersheds, streams, or rivers. 
Settling tanks must be provided so as to reduce the sedi- 
ment. Enough water has to be taken care of in a year 
to fill a river one hundred feet wide, ten feet deep, and 
reaching from New York to the Rocky Mountains and 
back. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 155 



(5) Cost of props and supports for the roof. Timber 
near the mines is exhausted so that timber has to be 
brought from the South. It costs at least $10,000,000 a 
year to buy and haul the timber, and $20,000,000 to put 
it in place. They- are now putting in steel props that cost 
four times as much as wood. Tunnels long enough to 
reach through the earth have to be kept propped, to keep 
haulage ways and air ducts open, and to protect the sur- 
face from subsidence. Even at that, the problem of sur- 
face support is now a very serious one. Where the 
''mammoth" vein, 40 to 60 feet in thickness lay near the 
surface and has been removed, it has been impossible to 
sustain the surface. In Scranton, schoolhouses and other 
buildings have collapsed. The only remedy seems to be 
to flush the mine full of culm, or sand, at a cost of about 
$2,000 an acre. 

If government control had been properly exercised, two 
things would have been in force. First, pillars in the 
different veins would have been columnized, — that is, the 
pillars and props in the lower veins would have been placed 
directly under those above, which they were not. Second, 
the city of Scranton would have been located on one side 
of the coal field instead of on it. Such location is said 
to be e(]ually adapted for a city. 

(6) Supplying water for the boilers. The water from 
the mine cannot be used in the boilers on account of the 
impurities, which would destroy them. The pure water 
has in many cases to be brought long distances at great 
expense. 

(7) Ventilating the mines. Air has to be carried 
through all parts of the mine, even the parts which have 
been exhausted, to sweep out the gases and to supply a 
sufficient quantity for every living being in the mine. The 
mine law requires that the anthracite miner be furnished 
with two hundred cubic feet of fresh air per minute. In 
order that no part of the mine may become charged with 
gas, double that amount is often furnished. In order to 
provide against accident and to keep the current moving 



156 COAL 



while repairs are being made, triplicate systems of fans 
are installed. Two fans may thus become disabled, and 
ventilation be kept up by the third. 

(8) Fighting mine fires. The Lehigh Coal and Navi- 
gation Company spent during six years $460,000 fighting 
fires. In one mine a concrete dam eighty feet long, forty- 
five feet high, and eight feet thick was built, in order to 
flood the fire regions. 

(9) Manufacture of the coal after it reaches the sur- 
face. The coal at the surface is by no means fit for, mar- 
ket. It is a mixture of coal, bone coal, and slate. A 
writer says of one mine: 

Two boxes of straight impurities were hoisted from the 
mine for every box of coal. Even of the coal that was dumped 
forty-eight per cent was eliminated by the breaker as slate 
and refuse. The coal finally reclaimed was only one-sixth of 
the material that was hoisted out of the shaft. The pile of 
"gobs" from the mine was simply tremendous. It extended for 
several thousand feet to the height of three hundred to four 
hundred feet, and was several hundred feet broad. 

Fully one-fifth of the cost of mining and preparing this 
coal for market comes after it is above ground. For the 
'"manufacture" of the coal in the anthracite region there 
are about three hundred breakers. These breakers crush 
the coal into the various sizes that are put upon the mar- 
ket, and in course of the breaking remove the impurities 
by washing, or picking, or screening until it will pass the 
inspector. Each size of coal is inspected, to see if it has 
more than the prescribed percentage of slate. If it has, 
it must be sent back to the breaker and recleaned. These 
breakers cost from $300,000 to $500,000 each. The life 
of a wooden breaker is about eight years; the iron posts 
may be eaten up by the sulphur in a year. 

(10) Cost of workmen's compensation. Anthracite 
mining is very hazardous. Men may be caugnt in the rim 
of a vein on a steep slope. Reclaiming pillars anywhere 
means many falls of roof, but on the steep slopes it is 
doubly dangerous. Men, too, become careless and take 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 157 

chances; eighty per cent of the accidents are due to care- 
lessness or disobedience of direction. One company, which 
mines eight millions tons a year, estimates its compensa- 
tion insurance cost at $500,000 or 15 to 2u cents a ton 
of coal mined. 

(11) Cost of modern convenience about a mine. 
Above ground : wash-houses, dAvelling houses, probably of 
brick or cement, with hot and cold water, bath rooms, and 
electric lighting. It is not uncommon to hear speakers 
berate operators for the hovels they rent to their men at 
a high rate, and condemn the cesspools and unsanitary 
surroundings that endanger life and health. These violent 
speakers have probably never visited a modern anthracite 
mine, or else do not care to tell the truth. 

In the mine is the greatest change from the olden times. 
Fire-proofing, haulageways, fire engines, hospitals and ap- 
pliances for first aid, and men trained to use them. Tele- 
phones are everywhere for call ; one company has fourteen 
hundred of them. 

The syndicalist who proposed to operate these mines 
needs gird himself to do a big man's job. 

The accompanying map shows the way the veins lie 
in most of the mines, especially in the Southern field. 

Life of the Anthracite Field 

Various attempts have been made to estimate the orig- 
inal content of the anthracite field and the number of years 
until the coal will be exhausted. 

The^ method of making the estimate is to take each of 
tiit: various veins and compute the amount of coal it orig- 
inaxly contained, then add the results. 

The data for the computation of the content of each 
\c, 1 are average thickness of the vein and its area. 

The average thickness of a vein is found by taking the 
ui. :kness of that vein in all the bore holes, ^shafts, and 
tuixuels that cut it, and assuming that the average found 
trum these is the thickness over its entire area. The area 



1^8 COAL 

lb found by finding the limits of the vein at the outcrop, 
or at the edges of it, as shown by borings and shafts. 

One of the most complete estimates is that made by 
J. P. Lesley in 1893. He estimated the original content 
of the Northern basin to be 5,700,000,000 tons; Eastern 
Middle, 600,000,000 tons ; Western Middle, 4,000,000,000 ; 
Southern, 9,200,000,000, or a total of 19,500,000,000 tons. 

He estimated that, counting that one and a half tons 
had been lost for every ton produced, the depletion up 
to 1893 had been 2,255,000,000 tons, leaving in the ground 
17,245,000,000 tons. The output since that time has been 
1,950,000,000 tons, so that the depletion has been about 
4,000,000,000 tons, leaving now 13,245,000,000 tons in the 
ground. Lesley assumed that forty per cent would be 
recovered from his estimated amount, li we assume fifty 
per cent recovery, the possible future production will be 
6,622,500,000 tons. 

The annual production has been more than 80,000,000 
tons in the last few years. Assuming that rate for the 
future, the field would be exhausted in eighty-three years. 
It seems that the peak of the production has been reached, 
and the output will soon gradually decline. The decreased 
annual output will lengthen the life of the field, but can- 
not increase the ultimate quantity of the coal. Every 
ton of annual anthracite decrease will throw that much 
greater dem.and upon the bituminous fields. 

The railroad mines are conserving their coal by tak- 
ing about twenty per cent of the output from the inde- 
pendent m.ines. At that rate the independent mines will be 
exhausted in about fifteen years. One large railroad com- 
pany estimates that it has a supply for one hundred and 
sixty- three years. If so, it will be mining its output of 
8,000,000 tons a year long after other mines are worked 
out. 



CHAPTER XVII 

,. PROPER USE OF COAL AFTER IT IS MINED 

Proper Use of Coal After It Is Mined— Difficulty Arising 
from Great Diversity of Use— Burning Raw Coal Wasteful- 
Feed the Furnace — Training Firemen to Save Coal— Burn Coal 
Before Burning It— Beehive Oven Saves Only Coke in General 
—Gas Producer, Turns All the Coal Into Gas— Advantages of 
Gas in Furnace— Advantages in Engines — Byproduct Ovens, 
Save Coke, Gas and Byproducts— Two Ways of Treating the 
Gas : Coaling and Heating, Cooling Only in Feld Process — 
Use of Byproducts : Fertilizer, Motor Power, Dyes, Drugs — 
Effect on Labor — Methods of Increasing Efficient Uses of Coal. 

It seems a hopeless task to do anything in a concerted, 
helpful v^ay to conserve coal in the vast field of coal con- 
sumption. It certainly is hopeless, if we do not mix our 
fine theory with large practical common sense. In this 
great diversified coal industry scattered over vast areas, 
in rural districts and urban districts, near railroads and 
remote from them, no single plan can be applied. But if 
there are abuses in the use of coal, or wasteful ways that 
ought to be remedied, and a plan can be devised and car- 
ried into effect that corrects those abuses even in a limited 
field, it is worth while. In time changing conditions may 
render it possible in other fields. The whole people, as 
we have shown, have an interest in conserving the coal 
supply. To its full extent, lack of scientific use of coal in 
consumption defeats the results of conservation in pro- 
duction. It is not the design of proper conservation to 
limit the output of consumption in the way of comfort to 
the domestic user and profit to the industrial user, hence 
the more coal it takes to do the same work the greater 
the drain on the supply. 

Burning of ''Raw Coar 

Most users of a small amount of coal have given little 
thought to the proper burning of their fuel. In the home, 

159 



160 COAL 

i . _ 

if the number of fires do not heat the house properly and 
cook the food well, more stoves are put up and more coal 
is piled on. In the majority of small factories little thought 
is given to the efficiency of the furnace and boiler. Coal 
has been so cheap that the burning of a few bushels more 
or less makes little difference in the manufactures' cost 
account. Besides, they do not know whether their fur- 
naces are properly m^ade or whether they are adapted to 
the kind of fuel they are using. They do not know how 
to test them, and either have no faith in experts or do not 
want to incur the expense of calling in a specialist. The 
result has been that in some cases not more than five or 
ten per cent of the heat value in the coal has been used 
productively. 

Matters, on the whole, however, have been improving. 
Even with coal at the low price at which it has been 
bought in the past, companies that use hundreds of thou- 
sands of tons in a year have come to see tliat it is a 
serious loss to waste a large percentage of the coal. So, 
they have installed automatic stokers, employed skillful 
managers, and employed specialists to advise them how. to 
adapt their equipment to the coal and how to use the coal 
with greater efficiency. Some coal companies employ ex- 
pert fuel engineers, who are ready to go to the different 
plants that use their coal and show the ov/ners how to 
equip and use their plant that is burning the special kind 
of coal they mine. Now, since coal has become dearer 
and will continue to grow dearer, the incentive to more 
efficient use of coal will grow stronger, and conservation 
will be promoted. 

The Bureau of Mines has taken a step that is good 
so far as it goes. A Bulletin has been issued explaining 
as far as possible the best way to burn coal in furnaces. 
It shows that we, as a nation, are becoming alive to the 
interest the whole people have in this form of conserva- 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 161 

tion. Some who get the Bulletin read it, and are inter- 
ested, may follow its suggestions. A second step is neces- 
sary, as I shall suggest later. 

Feeding The Coal To The Furnace And Grate 

Hand firing by shoveling the coal into the furnace is 
the original way of firing, and even yet it is the general 
way. Efforts to lessen the smoke menace and waste led 
to training the fireman to become a scientific expert. 
Schools for firemen are established by some railroads, 
where expert instructors are employed. Automatic stok- 
ers have reduced coal and labor costs, made the use of finer 
coal possible, and made it easier to control the rate and 
constancy of firing. Powdered coal has been used in some 
furnaces, promoting complete combustion, and saving labor 
and fuel. 

All burning of raw coal for its heat content only is 
wasteful. So nearly is that statement true universally that 
its use is warranted. We have not been able to use economi- 
cally one hundred per cent of the energy content of coal, 
and probably never will. Every pound of coal has just 
a certain amount of heat energy locked up in it. No de- 
vice can be invented by which more energy can be ex- 
tracted than that certain content. All we can do is to em- 
ploy all possible means by which we can come as near as 
we may to getting out and using that certain content of 
value. This we are in duty bound to do and to compel 
others to do with the coal, they use. 

When we speak of the energy content of coal, of course, 
we only speak of the energy and value that are shown by 
our chemical and physical tests. Sometime someone may 
find the key that will unlock the great energy bound up 
in the atoms and teach how to use it. When that time 
comes, the duty to use it economically will lie upon the 
users of this great energy, just as it lies upon us to use 
economically our limited supply of energy. Abundance is 



162 COAL 



no excuse for waste. It may well be, however, that poster- 
ity may have new uses for energy of which we do not now 
dream. 

Burn Coal Before Burning 

This looks like the saying of a jester, or an idiot. But 
it is literally true that double-burning is the best way to 
burn coal. I reserve the full description of the equipment 
and method of operation till later, and only treat here the 
three ways of double-burning that we may pass upon their 
use and value and hence the need, or the opposite, — for 
Government control or encouragement and help. The 
three ways are : 

1. Bee-hive coke oven. The first burning in this case 
is for the sole purpose of making coke. All the volatile 
content of the coal is distilled is ordinarily allowed to 
escape directly into the air. The residue is carbon, and 
of course the ash of the coal. The carbon or coke is very 
valuable, especially for use in metallurgy. If there were 
no other way of melting iron serving the other purposes 
to 'iwhich bee-hive coke is put, and no other way of 
getting as good coke, — much as we deplore the waste of the 
very valuable products that are sent into the air, — we 
might accept it as one of the necessary evils, the less of 
two evils. But there are other ways that accomplish the 
same result and save the valuable products now being 
wasted. Some companies are now carrying the heated 
gases to their heating equipment, and are thus becoming 
coke and gas companies by saving the volatile content of 
the coal. 

2. Gas producers. These are indeed properly named 
"gas producers." In the bee-hive oven the object is to 
get clear of all gas and leave only coke. Here the whole 
object is to turn all the coal into gas. The only residue 
is the ash, which cannot be turned into gas. If the gas 
producer is working well, all coal put in it is changed into 
useful gas. If an ordinary coal fi-^e is working well, it 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 163 

burns all the coal put into it into useless gas. The gas that 
goes up the chimney from a properly burning grate should 
be as nearly as possible burned-out or satisfied gas, such 
as carbon dioxide. The gas that comes out of the pipe 
in a gas producer must be as nearly as possible unburned 
or unsatisfied gas, such as carbon monoxide, which is un- 
satisfied until it burns, that is gets for each molecule of 
CO another molecule of oxygen and becomes CO2 when 
it is satisfied, and will burn no more; and hydrogen which 
is unsatisfied until it gets oxygen to turn it to water vapor. 
Suppose, now, that the gas-producer oven has done 
its work of turning the coal into gas, the gas comes out of 
the oven ready to be used. There are, in general, two 
ways in either of v/hich it may be used. It may be 
piped directly to the furnace to be burned to furnish the 
heat for the same purposes for which raw coal is usually 
employed. If used in this way nothing it taken out of the 
gas. It is carried to the furnace hot and tarry. 

Advantages of the Use of Producer Gas Over Raw Coal 
in Dirject Burning in the Furance 

1. Gas may be burned in the furnace without smoke. 
In a furnace fired with coal the hydro-carbon vapors are 
disengaged as soon as the fire is started and are not burned 
but go up the chimney, and not only make objectionable 
smoke but carry the heat value of the hydro-carbons away 
unused. 2. With gas there is less waste of heat up the 
chimney in another way. If the fuel on the grate is deep 
and the air draught not strong, the fuel is not all burned 
completely but a considerable quantity of carbon monoxide 
is formed, which goes up the chimney unburnt and is 
wasted. If the fuel bed is shallow and a sufficiently strong 
draught to produce complete combustion, there must be 
about three times as much air introduced as can be chemi- 
cally united with the fuel Therefore^ a large amount of 



164 COAL 



nitrogen and the oxygen which cannot unite with carbon 
must be heated uselessly, and thus carry away several 
times as much heat as a like burning of gas would. 

In some high temperature furnaces fired with solid fuel, 
it is estimated that only five to ten per cent of the heat value 
of the fuel is actually used. In most cases the heat losses by 
direct firing may be four or five times as great as by gas 
firing. . . . On the average one ton of coal in the gas pro- 
ducer will develop as much energy as two and a half tons 
in the ordinary steam plant. 

Heating Uses for Which Gas Is Superior to Coal 

First. Use in furnaces which require a uniform heat 
For a heat re<^ulated in any special way. Valves may be 
set to furnish gas in uniform quantity for constant heat, 
or be opened and closed at will for any required variation 
in heat. 

Second. Use in deoxodizing metals. By reducing the 
supply of air in the gas, the gas may not contain enough 
oxygen for complete combustion. Now, let it come in 
contact with oxidized metal, such as bars of rusted iron, 
it attacks the iron oxide and takes away the oxygen which 
had combined with the surface iron and cleans the sur- 
face. 

Third. Uses where the material must be heated grad- 
ually and then cooled gradually. The following quotation 
from Dawson and Harters "Producer Gas" will illustrate 
this point : 

In many operations, such as annealing glass or wire, the 
enamelling or glazing of various m.aterials, it is necessary to 
heat them gradually till they reach a high temperature, main- 
tain them at that heat for a time then cool them gradually. 
It is usual to do this in a chamber and the oven or chamber 
is gradually heated to a higher temperature then allowed to 
cool for each charge of material treated. This involves a con- 
siderable loss of heat. The wear and tear of the oven is ex- 
cessively great owing to the frequent expansion and contraction 
of the brick work and its injury by hard firing to get the heat 
up to the maximum* 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 165 



Mr. Dawson designed a continuous furnace for the 
purpose of carbonizing large blocks of material for use 
in electrolytic work, which obviated this objection and 
difficulty. The design consisted of a long furnace heated 
to a high heat by gas at the middle. The hot products of 
combustion traveled from the middle to the charging end 
of the furance, growing gradually cooler as they neared 
the end. The far end of the oven was not heated at all. 
The blocks to be carbonized w^ere carried on wagons, which 
were protected from the excessive heat by a special de- 
vice. The whole furnace was kept full of wagons push- 
ed into and through the furance by a hydraulic ram. Each 
wagon as it entered encountered a moderate heat that grew 
stronger until it reached a maximum at the middle, and 
cooled gradually until it reached the far end. The rate 
at which the wagons traveled was guaged so that the work 
was done by the time it reached the middle of the furnace. 

Advantages of Gas Over Steam in Engines 

The gas as it comes out of the gas producer is not 
fit to be used in an engine. It is too hot. If it is to be 
burned in a furnace, the hotter it is the better, but for use 
in the engine it must be cooled almost to atmospheric heat. 
It is also too tarry and full of hydro-carbons. These are 
valuable in gas that is' to be burned in a furnace, but they 
clog the pipes and the chambers of the engine. Hence, 
for use in engines the gas must be cleaned and cooled in 
scrubbers, which makes a gas engine plant more com- 
plicated and expensive than a metallurgic gas plant. Yet, 
withal, it still maintains various advantages over a steam- 
engine plant. 

1. Gas producer may be at considerable distance from 
the engine. If various engines are used in a plant, each 
engine ought to be as near as possible to the work it is 
to do. If it is far from its work, many and long shafts 
or belts are necessary, each using up energy and each 
liable to get out of order and certain to wear out. In a 



166 COAL 



steam plant the engines ought to be near the boiler; steam 
sent long distances in pipes cools and loses by condensa- 
tion. In a scattered plant the engines cannot be both near 
work and near the boiler, so there is loss whichever evil 
is chosen. Gas from a producer may be carried to a con- 
siderable distance. It does not condense, and loss of heat 
may be a benefit rather than a deteriment. Hence the 
producer ovens may be arranged in batteries in one part 
of the plant, and the engines placed where each will be 
near its allotted work. 

In discussing the tests of the Bering River coal, we 
found that, even as good coal as that failed to do satis- 
factory work on boilers requiring forced draft. The 
Geological Survey made many tests of gas producers at 
St. Louis. They say: 

These tests in the gas producer have shown that many 
fuels of such low grade as to be practically valueless for 
steaming purposes, such as slack coal, bone coal and lignite, 
may be economically converted into producer gas and may 
thus generate sufficient power to render them of high com- 
merciali value. Coals with ash as high as forty-four per cent, 
and lignites and peats high in moisture have been converted 
into gas that has been used in operating gas engines. It has 
been demonstrated that the low-grade coals high in sulphur 
and ash now left under ground can be used in the gas producer. 

3. Gas producer engines are more efficient than steam 
engines. 

The same report says : 

It is estimated that on the average, each coal tested in the 
gas producer plant developed two and one-half times the 
power that it would develop if used in the ordinary steam 
boiler plant. It was found that the low-grade lignite of North 
Dakota developed as much power when converted into pro- 
ducer gas as did the best West Virginia bituminous coals when 
used under the steam boiler. 

Dawson made tests in which he compared the efficiency 
of the ga3-producer engine with the steam engine. His 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 167 

first test was of a two hundred and fifty horse-power en- 
gine producing one hundred units of energy. He found: 
1. To produce one hundred units of energy by a steam 
driven engine of two hundred and fifty horse-power it 
took eleven hundred and twenty units of heat energy. 2. 
To produce one hundred units of energy by a gas engine 
of two hundred and fifty horse-power it took five hun- 
dred and twenty-five units of heat energy. Therefore, 
for a two hundred and fifty horse-power engine, the gas 
producer engine is two and one-seventh times as efficient 
as a like steam engine. 

His next test was of a forty horse-power engine. He 
found: 1. To product one hundred units of energy by 
a steam engine of forty horse-power, it took sixteen hun- 
dred and eighty units of heat energy. 2. To produce 
one hundred units of energy by a gas engine of forty horse- 
power, it took four hundred and ninety-four heat units. 
Therefore, for a forty horse-power engine the gas engine 
is three and four-tenths times as efficient as the steam en- 
gine. 

Byproduct Gas And Coke Producer 

In the byproduct oven the coal is heated and distilled 
without the air's coming into contact with the coal. The 
two major products are coke and gas ; and the gas is then 
treated so as to extract the various byproducts. 

The gas comes out of the oven very hot and may be 
treated in either of two ways: (1) By an alternate pro- 
cess of cooling and heating, (2) By a continuous process 
of cooling. 

(1) Alternate process of cooling and heating. 

The gas is passed through a cooler which reduces the 
temperature to 100 to 125 degrees fahrenheit, while at this 
temperature the ammonia is taken out and the tar is ex- 
tracted. 

This is the end of the cooling process. 



168 COAL 



The gas, now being freed from its ammonia and tar, 
may either be further cleaned and then passed on to be 
used in h'ghting and heating, or it may be washed wnth 
various absorbent oils for its byproducts. 

The tar may now be heated gradually and as, the tem- 
perature reaches the boiling point of each of the various 
constituents in the tar, that product is taken off, then at a 
still higher heat the boiling point of another constituent is 
reached and it is taken off, and so on up to over 600^ F. at 
least. 

(2) Continuous coohng process. 

This is the Walter Feld process of extracting the ma- 
jor byproducts. Feld reasoned that it is a wasteful pro- 
cess to allow the gas to cool, and the various contents in 
it without taking them out and then heating them all over 
again. The two principles made use of are : 

(a) Each major constituent in the hot gas has a definite 
*'dew" point. That is, when the temperature of the gas is 
reduced to that dew point that constituent is precipiated. 

(b) The best way to take off each constituent is to 
have the gas come into contact with that constituent in 
liquid form and at a temperature a little less than its dew 
point. 

Therefore Feld arranged eleven washers, or vessels, 
each containing a liquid of one of the constituents of the 
gas at about the temperature of its condensation. 

The gas between its initial temperature and 600^ de- 
posited pitch. At 608° it came in contact with anthra- 
cene, and anthracene is deposited. So, with temperature 
of 420° it came in contact with napthalene ; creosol at 338° ; 
solvent naptha at 300°; xylol at 288°; toluol at 230°; 
benzol at 190°; cyanogen at 110°, and ammonia at 95°. 
Each constituent was taken out at its dew point. 

The most common way however, in this country is the 
cooling, the heating the tar, and washing the gas process, 
because the object is simply to get cyanogen, sulphate of 
ammonia, benzol, and toluol. These products are well 
worth saving. 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 169 

(1) Cyanogen is used in the cyanide process of ex- 
tracting gold from its ore and in such poisons as cyanide of 
potassium. 

(2) Sulphate of ammonia as a fertilizer is so valuable 
that it has been proposed to erect byproduct ovens for the 
prime purpose of making sulphate of ammonia for fer- 
tilizer. The following quotation from a recent paper ex- 
presses the fact of the value of sulphate of ammonia as 
a needed fertilizer. 

Students long ago came to appreciate the seriousness of 
our farm problem. Every county has its farming community 
which is worth to it millions of dollars. This value is deter- 
iorating because of the impoverishment of the soil. Farmers 
and farm workers by the tens of thousands are deserting their 
old communities, friends and environs to go into the distant 
fields of Western Canada. A large part of the East is now 
considered as practically unfarmabie territory. Ohio is de- 
teriorating and the point is rapidly approaching where even 
Illinois, Indiana and Iowa will become hard States in which 
to farm. The one thing which this land needs is to be fed 
with a soil enricher. One of the byproducts in the manufac- 
ture of coke is ammonium sulphate which is ideal for the 
enrichment of impoverished soil. I have in mind one farming 
district which now has under consideration the building of 
byproduct ovens not alone for the supply of gas but also for 
the ammonium sulphate and other byproducts. 

3. Benzol and Toluol. The importance of extracting 
from the tar these two constituents v^as scarcely realized 
before the war. England, too, was asleep ; ' Germany 
awake. ^ Prof. Bone in a lecture in London, while war 
was going on, said : 

' Benzine was discovered by Faraday twenty years before 
Hoffman demonstrated its presence in coal tar. Mansfield dis- 
tilled it and toluene from coal tar. After Hoffman returned 
to Berlin in 1865, the industry gradually left England and 
went to Germany. For years before the war, German chemists 
had been preparing the way for its use in war by providing 
for saving it from industrial processes while England was car- 
bonizing It all. Germany's violation of Belgium and seizure of 
that country and Northern France had more than mere military 
importance. It was the coal fields for the manufacture of 
high explosives that the Germans wanted, the Westphalian coal 



170 COAL 



did not yield such large quantities of toluol or benzol as Belgium 
or English coal. For the supply of high explosives we de- 
pt-ndcd entirely on benzol and toluol, and with our present 
method of carbonizing coal the supply is limited. The min- 
istry of munitions was guilty of culpable negligence in dis- 
regarding the warning of chemists, and if we failed to keep 
up supplies of explosives it would be due to lack of initiative 
and insight on the part of those who should have known. 
After the war there must be a systematic investigation of 
the chemical nature of coal and a chemical survey of the 
principal British coal fields. 

This charge of extravagant waste of coall products cer- 
tainly applies to us, and the call to remedy it after the 
war is as urgent. It is a common saying that "Chemistry 
fought the war." And of the products of chemical skill, 
benzol and toluol are pre-eminent. Not only did benzol 
furnish high explosives but it furnished motive power. 
The scarcity of gasoline for use in their trucks and auto- 
mobiles would have been fatal to Germany, had not the 
supply of benzol furnished the substitute. And it will help 
Germany on her way to recovery. It is said that benzol 
is used almost entirely in German automobile and truck 
engines. 

If benzol is produced in excess of demand, or not used 
in engines, it is turned over to the chemical industry. 
Benzol is the chief raw material of the artificial dye-stufif 
industry. From it may come phenol, vanalin, ammonite, 
hydro-chinon, — a photographic product, — and antifebrine, 
as well as analyne dyes. Toluol gives benzoic acid, and 
benzol alcohol. 

From the various primaries mentioned before in con- 
nection with the Feld process, chemistry derives drugs 
and dyes almost innumerable. Germany's pre-eminence in 
the field of dye-stuffs manufactured from coal tar should 
halt our waste. 

Not only had Germany for years been developing the 
bases of her explosives and her motive fuel but she had 
almost cornered the market for medicines and certain 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 171 



drugs. She had almost a monopoly of the dye industry. 
We can get along comfortably without most of the dyes, 
but if we can get them from what we have been throwing 
away, it is well to see if it is not worth while to get them. 
The way in which Germany was ^'putting it over'' oa 
England and us is well expressed by Dr. Howard m his 
"Industrial Progress of Germany,'' written in 1907. 

The most interesting branch of the chemical industry is the 
manufacture of dye stuffs from coal tar. It is m this field that 
the most recent and brilliant achievements of the German 
chemists have been won. In 1860 all the dyes used were or- 
ganic, and Germany was almost entirely dependent on foreign 
countries for her supply. The annual cost to the country 
was twenty-four million, one hundred twenty thousand dollars. 
By 1900, the import had sunk to almost nothing and the ex- 
ports had risen to twenty-four million, three hundred thousand 
dollars. Almost without exception the discovery and produc- 
tion of coal-tar dyes remained in the hands of the Germans. 
The raw material'is the byproduct of gas and coke manufac- 
ture, which was formerly a worse than useless waste. Now 
Germany not only utilizes all the coal tar produced in that 
country but imports large quantities in the form of benzol 
from Belgium, Great Britain and Austria-Hungary. All this 
import and more is sold back to these countries again, multi- 
ph'ed many tim.es in value in the shape of dyes. Four-fifths 
of all the world's products of dye stuffs, as well as large pro- 
portions of the medical preparations derived from coal tar are 
made in Germany. The annual production of these dyes 
amounted in 1897 to thirty m_illion dollars worth. 

For centuries indigo had been one of tlie great items 
of import to the textile-producing countries. In 1897 the 
German chemist Bayer discovered a process of making 
artificial indigo, which revolutionized this trade. In 1902 
the export of artificial indigo from Germany was eighteen 
million pounds. The discovery of this artificial indigo was 
no doubt brought about by the Feld process previously de- 
scribed. Anthracene, — from which Lazarene is derived, 
and from it indigo, — is precipitated from gas when it has 
been reduced in temperature to 608° F. Chemists who 
heated the tar to get the products mostly went but little 
above the temperature for boiling o f toluol, or 230°. 



172 COAL 



Enough has been said to show how absurd and waste- 
ful it is to burn raw coal and with it these valuable pro- 
ducts. It is even more absurd to sell our coal abroad as 
we have been doing, and after they, as in Germany, have 
taken out of their coal the fuel, gas, and coke, sell ius 
back at a high price products like the ones we have given 
them for nothing and boasted of our great export trade. 
Mr. Porter, in a lecture in 1914, said : 

If the coke produced in the United States in 1913 had been 
made in byproduct ovens eighty million dollars worth of by- 
products might have been saved and ten million more in the 
higher yield of coke. Instead of burning in a single operation, 
as is done in a combustion furnace using coal, whereby all 
coal and intermediate products evolved from it are burned for 
their heat value only, the byproduct ovens convert it into 
two improved forms of fuel, coke, and gas, with a combined 
heat value about eighty-five per cent of the heat of the coal, 
and in addition save the byproducts, tar, benzol, and ammonia 
wi}ich have a chemical value far exceeding their fuel value. 

The case in 1919 was more impressive; in that year 
bee-hive ovens produced 33,000,000 tons of coke. If the 
coal had been burned in byproduct ovens, the output would 
have been 2,400,000 tons more coke; 400,000,000 gallons 
of the tar ; 545,000 tons of ammonia sulphate ; 82,000,000 
gallons of benzol; 20,000,000 gallons of toluol, and 300,- 
000,000 cubic feet of gas. The benzol wasted would have 
been enough to replace a hundred million gallons of 
gasoline. Ammonia sulphate wasted was enough to fer- 
tilize 10,000,000 acres of land, giving each acre 100 pounds 
of it, and estimated to increase the wheat crop by 80,000,- 
000 bushels. 

Effect on Labor 

Aside from the direct economic value of this scientific 
use of the coal, it has been suggested that it will tend to 
stabilize mine labor. The miner now has little hope of 
moving up, each advance bringing better pay for its re- 
quirement of skill. An intelligent young man becomes a 
miner, he works year after year, each new year being just 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 173 



like the old one. He sees young men in other industries 
win higher places by faithful work and study. If nothing 
more, he thinks his long years of service should bring him 
more wages. He asks an increase. The manager might 
be willing to reward him for his loyalty, but the kind of 
work he is doing is paid for at the same rate to all, the 
industry cannot stand an increase all around. Suppose 
the coal business is not simply a Hewing mdustry, but 
starting with coal mining as a first step it develops from 
step to step in a series of industries, each industry in the 
series requiring greater skill and knowledge and command- 
ing higher wages, then the young man who has done his 
work faithfully in his present position and fitted himself 
for higher position does not strike for more pay, instead, 
he advances to a place of greater pay and greater responsi- 
bility. 

METHODS OF INCREASE OF EFFICIENCY IN THE USE OF COAL 

(1) Intelligent Self-interest As Knowledge Increases 
Burning in furnaces. Increase of efficienc}^ in the use 
of coal is encouraged by helpful information in bulletins 
issued by the Bureau of Mines, showing how to burn coal 
in both domestic and industrial furnaces ; by schools for 
firemen on railroads, in which expert fuel engineers in- 
struct the firemen in methods of firing so as to save coal ; 
by companies that send out fuel engineers to inspect the 
furnaces of their customers and show the firemen hoy^r 
to fire their coal and show the customers what kind of 
furnace they need; by furnace makers, who are improv- 
ing their furnaces and appealing to buyers on the ground 
of their fuel saving; by introduction of stokers because 
they save coal and also labor cost. 

Byproduct Ovens 

Centralized plants are being made to pay as invest- 
ments, and that will attract capital. 

For the first time in the history of coke-making in the 
United States more coke was made in 1919 in byproduct 



174 COAL 

ovens than in bee-hive ovens, being 56 per cent of the 
entire coke output. In 1919, 1228 new byproduct ovens 
were completed, of which 718 were new plants, the rest 
being extensions of old plants. 

In 1919 byproduct ovens produced 35,000,000 tons of 
coke, using 50,000,000 tons of coal, and producing 668,000,- 
000 pounds of sulphate of ammonia; 251,000,000 gallons 
of tar; 140,000,000 gallons of crude oil, and 370,000,000 
cubic feet of gas. 

A single steel company is burning 2,000 tons of coal 
every 24 hours, the byproducts being 2,000 gallons of crude 
tar; 6,000 pounds of ammonia sulphate; 7,000 gallons of 
light oil; fuel gas for boilers and electrical driving ma- 
chinery in mines, quarries and furnaces, and overplus of 
7,000,000 cubic feet for market. 

The St. Louis Coke and Chemical Company is construc- 
ting a byproduct plant at Granite, Illinois, which will, when 
the four units of 80 ovens each are completed, coke 8,000 
tons of Illinois and Indiana coal every day. 

(2) Government Regulation and Control 

(a) Burning in furnaces. The mining department has 
not accomplished its full purpose if it does not help and 
control, so as to lessen waste and promote efficiency in 
coal consumption as well as in coal production. 

The inspectors report all conditions in all the mines, 
including the kind and efficiency of their furnaces and 
boilers. These should be under a sensible, helpful, but 
firm control. If a mine doesn't need a change, no harm 
is done; if it does, it will be benefitted. 

Other plants, if found to be wasteful and unwilling to 
change, might be denied railroad facilities in coal. Dur- 
ing the war coal was denied to some industries that wasted 
coal. 

(b) Byproduct plants. As stated before, a consistent 
effort is to be made to centralize and conserve power. It 
should be the duty of the Mining Department to study the 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 175 



various coal fields ; map out a general scheme of centraliza- 
tion ; if possible, enlist capital in carrying it out. A system 
of loans by the government could be established similar to 
farm loans, — money to be loaned when needed to hasten 
construction of byproduct plants and hydro-electric "super- 
power" plants. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

AUXILIARIES TO OUR COAL SUPPLY 

Oil: Old Oil Fields Nearly Exhausted— Oil Fields in the 
Western part of United States — Southwestern Oil Field— Oil 
from Oil-Bearing Schist — Mexican Oil Fields — Coal Operators 
Alarmed at the Invasion of Cheap Oil — Indirect Effect: Les- 
sens Freight and Lessens Demand of Engines for Coal — 
Operators Demand a Tariff on Oil. 

In discussing coal conservation, it seems proper and 
necessary to give a statement of the v^ay in v^hich oil 
and **white coal" or water power auxiliaries help con- 
servation. 

Oil As a Conservation Help 

If we were to state it as coal operators would, it 
would be "oil as a menace to the coal industry." 

Our Present Home ContribvUon 

The old oil fields are practically exhausted, so far as 
being an aid to conservation or a "menace" to the coal 
industry is concerned. The production is so small that 
it sells for more than six dollars a barrel. If a barrel of 
oil is equivalent to one-fourth of a ton of coal, coal 
would have to sell at twenty-four dollars a ton to be as 
dear as oil. 

There never was a time when "Pennsylvania Oil," 
which is the standard oil of the world, could supplant 
coal by its cheapness. When this oil was so cheap that 
it was used most wastefully, coal also was so cheap 
that it was both mined and used wastefully. 

Appalachian or "Pennsylvania oil," was sold at fifty 
cents to ninety-six cents a barrel, while coal was sold 
at ninety-five cents a ton. 

Oil Fields in the Western Part of the United States 

California has been the great oil state of the West. 
It commenced to produce oil about 1860, and by 1904 

176 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 177 

produced one-fourth of all the oil then produced in the 
United States. Some of the wells rivalled the great 
wells in Mexico, flowing ten thousand barrels a day, 
and the output was so great that it sold as low as sev- 
enteen cents a barrel. 

Oil could not be called a conserver of local coal in 
the West, as the coal is in scattered areas, and mostly 
poor coal. It might better be said that it supplemented 
coal. Industries, which w^ould not have been developed 
by the use of coal, were developed by the use of oil. 
It increased railroad facilities, as it now fuels the rail- 
road engines on the roads running east and west for 
many miles. It fuels ships that ply in and out of San 
Francisco and along the Pacific Coast. 

It will conserve the Pocahontas Coal that would 
have been carried to the Pacific Coast to coal our bat- 
tleships, by now fuelling them with oil. Oil in Cali- 
fornia is now being used less wastefully and more 
scientifically. It is being fractionated, so that valuable 
byproducts, such as gasoline and kerosene, are being 
extracted and the fuel oil used for burning directly. 

The Southwestern Oil Field 

The Southwestern oil field is situated in several de- 
tached fields in the States of Texas, Louisiana, Okla- 
homa, and Southern Kansas. The prdouction is at 
present increasing. Some of the wells are now shut 
in, and their possible output is not definitely known. If 
we believe the circulars sent out by promoting com- 
panies, if all possible production were let loose at once, 
a dangerous flood would result. This field, like other 
fields of large production, has suflfered from the igno- 
rance and dishonesty of many operators. Ignorant men 
think that a space large enough for a derrick, sur- 
rounded by large producing v/ells, will last indefinitely ; 
dishonest promoters secure a small area and proceed 
to issue millions of stock on the strength of a single 
well, which, even if large, can last but a few months. 



178 COAL 



In this way the areas in the oldest fields of the South- 
west are being rapidly drained. In one field in Louis- 
iana, 68 per cent of the deep mines were dry, and the 
large wells declined 85 to 95 per cent in a year. 

The field will yield a large production, however ; 
wells of ten thousand to twenty thousand barrels a day 
are struck. It is a pity that there cannot be a control 
exercised that will keep these wells closed that are not 
needed until ''topping*'' plants can be made, which ought 
to save the valuable byproducts, which are of more 
value when extracted than their heat value when burned 
raw. 

Oil From Oil-bearing Schist in Various States 

The United States Geological Survey announces that 
billions of barrels of crude oil exist in the rocky schist 
of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and other Western States, 
and that from forty to fifty gallons of crude oil can be ob- 
tained from each ton of this schist. The cost of mining 
and retorting the ore is small, as the rocks are standing 
above the surface of the ground, and can be dug out of 
the hill and sent down to the retorts by gravity. To mine 
and retort this schist will cost sixty cents a ton, and from 
a ton the forty gallons of crude oil obtained will cost a 
cent and a half a gallon. 

From the forty gallons of crude oil, eighty gallons of 
gasoline, sixteen gallons of kersone, and sixteen gallons 
of fuel oil will be obtained. This oil is, of course, not 
now available commercially. Experiment and investiga- 
tion have shown the real value of, this deposit to be great. 
It should not now be developed but held in reserve to take 
the place of some of the other sources of oil supply which 
the wild scramble for the ready dollar will soon exhaust. 

Foreign Contribution to Our Oil Supply Mexican Oil 

Fields 

The fields in Mexico, under development now, are 
near the eastern border of the country, within thirty or 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 179 



forty miles of Tampico and Tuxpan. From Tampico it 
takes a tank-steamer from two to nine days to reach the 
various points on our coast. 

The oil fields west and southwest of Tampico produce 
a very heavy oil, which can scarcely be sent through pipes 
without heating. Wells here are not so large, but flow 
almost indefinitely. 

The fields south of Tampico and nearer Tuxpan pro- 
duce a lighter oil, and the oil is piped to Tuxpan or Tam- 
pico. Enormous wells here produce as m^uch as ten thou- 
sand to twenty thousand barrels a day. The export to 
the United States was thirty-nine million barrels in 1918, 
displacing about ten million tons of coal. 

Much more would have been imported if tank-steamers 
and barges had been available. Now, since the war is 
over and ships released from overseas use and large num- 
bers of new larger vessels are being built, the transporta- 
tion will become ready for all the oil that can be sold. 

It is estimated that the proved fields in Mexico can 
produce two-thirds of a billion barrels a year, — enough 
to equal in heat value all the coal mined in a year in 
Pennsylvania. It is not probable that anything near such 
enormous export as that will ever be reached. The present 
rate of output is one hundred and twenty-five million bar- 
rels a year. 

Operators Alarmed by the Invasion of Cheap Fuel 

Oil producers had too few customers for the output 
to which they had been forced by war demand. To have 
their old customers taken away from them by this new 
foreign competitor they regard with alarm and resentment. 
Their own cost of production has been greatly increased. 
Increased cost of labor, equipm_ent, and supplies, increase 
in freight rates, make it impossible to compete with this 
new cheap untaxed "'inexhaustible" rival. Cheap labor in 
the Mexican oil fields, wells flowing like a small river, set 
a price at the wells, at times, as low as one cent a barrel 



180 COAL 



Long contracts have been made at Mexican ports for 
twenty-four cents a barrel. Cost of transportation in tanks 
and barges is so small that oil was sold at from sixty cents 
to a dollar a barrel on the Atlantic Coast. Oil sold in 
New England at a dollar a barrel would require West 
Virginia coal to sell at four dollars a ton, which is less 
than freight rate, with nothing for the coal. 

Oil is carried up the Mississippi River and sold within 
twenty miles of the Illinois coal fields for less than coal 
prices. Barges are being planned to carry oil up the New 
York Canal, so as to compete with coal in the Lake cities. 

Ships are being equipped to burn oil, engines use oil, 
oil is used for fuel in making china, tile, pottery, terra cotta, 
brick, in metallurgical furnaces, and for domestic use. 

Indirect Effect 

The more ships equipped to burn oil, the less bunker 
coal is needed, the less freight of coal from the coal field 
to the Coast, the less freight engine coal needed. 

The freight engines that have hauled coal from the 
New England Coast to the interior will haul oil, and oil 
that will make as much heat as the coal it displaces will 
weigh less than two-thirds as much as the coal and take 
fewer engines to haul the oil and less coal to fuel them, 
even if they use coal. Eventually oil companies may pipe 
their oil from the Coast, and thus also supplant oil frefght. 

Operators Demand a Tariff on Mexican Oil 

They demand protection of our high-priced skilled labor 
against low-paid unskilled labor. They say that men who 
have spent their lives and money to build up and supply 
a najtional necessity, who pay taxes and have had snfall 
profit, must not be destroyed. Industrial users, who are 
now changing to oil, cannot complain that their oil is taxed, 
they have been warmed into life and prosperity by cheap 
coal, which operators furnished them at cost, or below. A 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 181 



specimen instance is given of a factory which was given 
coal during the war on a contract which netted the operator 
a dollar a ton loss. When the contract expired, the factory 
changed to oil. 

It Is Not Likely That a Tariff Will Be Imposed 

We need the Mexican oil to conserve our domestic oil 
and its byproducts. The Bureau of Mines says: 

The consumption of petroleum is increasing far more rap- 
idly than is domestic production. During 1918, we imported 
thirty-nine million barrels and withdrew from^ stock twenty- 
seven million barrels. Our future supply of oil must be con- 
served, it is imperative that the United States make every 
possible effort to further more efficient conservation of our 
underground reserves of oil and the more efficient use of oil 
and its products, because : 

(1) Oil has become the basis of the Industrial and military 
life of the nation in that gasoline has become the motive power 
for some six million automobiles and trucks, for airplanes, farm 
tractors and motor boats. Lubricating oil is essential for 
machinery of all kinds, and not a wheel would turn without it. 

(2) The known oil reserves of the United States are not 
receiving adequate protection, and are being wasted through 
inefficient methods in production, refining and using the oil. 
The waste in oil and natural gas in the United States amounts 
in a year to $2,000,000,000. The United States must take every 
step possible towards conserving our resources of oil. 

This sounds like what we have been saying about coal, 
only that conservation of coal is even more important than 
conservation of oil. Motor oil, a byproduct of coal, is 
from twenty to thirty per cent more efficient as a motive 
power than gasoline, and there is another lubricant as good 
if not better than oil. 

Pertinent as this appeal is, it will fall on deaf ears. 
The new leasing law opening to exploitation the vast oil 
fields of the West has nothing in it to safeguard the oil. 
It simply invites a repetition of the criminal waste of the 
past. 

It is possible that consumers, who have turned to oil 



182 COAL 

burning, are building too largely on an inexhaustible, cheap 
oil supply, and coal men are unduly alarmed. 

(1) Every oil and gas field on which high hopes were 
built in the past has fallen off in production, some have 
failed entirely. Some of the large wells in Mexico have 
flowed themselves out, and water has drowned out the 
oil in numbers of others. 

(2) Oil from Mexico is already being increased in 
price, so that coal can compete in cheapness. These oil 
fields are falling into the hands of foreign owners, and 
they can divert oil to other markets, as they are doing to 
the markets in Cuba, South America, Trinidad, Jamaica, 
British Guiana, and St. Vincent. 

M. L. Goud, writing in April, 1920, says : 

To-day, owners of oil-burning steamers are having the 
greatest difficulty in arranging their supplies both at United 
States and foreign ports. The most unusual and expensive ex- 
pedients are adapted to secure oil. Diversions of hundreds of 
miles are necessary to obtain fuel oil on certain voyages from 
the United States. There is a real scarcity everywhere. Two 
or three times the prices paid in 1919 are quoted. Prices up 
i^'om one hundred, two hundred, three hundred per cent in 
four months. 

We need all our domestic oil for its byproducts. While 
we are fractionating our oil for its valuable contents in 
addition to its fuel oil, we are using Mexican oil to save 
both our oil and coal. 

This '^invasion'' of a cheap labor-saving fuel may drive 
our coal men to use their coal more scientifically. By 
constructing byproducts ovens at the mine, or in the center 
of a group of mines, saving the byproducts, piping gas 
for miles, or sending electric current, the}^ may bring a 
more convenient fuel or energy to the domestic or industrial 
user, and thus meet oil on its own challenge of cleanliness, 
convenience, and low cost. 



CHAPTER XIX 



WHITE COAL 



The Old Water Wheel— Water Split Up Into Steam— Cen- 
tralizing Energy Sources— Three Kinds of Central Power: 
Steam Alone, \¥ater Alone, Steam and Water Power— A Plan 
to Centralize Power Between the Boston and Washington 
Areas— Eiectrif3nng a Railroad By Water Power— Hydro-Elec- 
tric Plant with Four Thousand Feet Head— Hydro-Electric 
Plant at Keokuk, Iowa — The Smallest Public Service Hydro- 
Electric Plant. 

The Old Water Wheel 

Some of the most famous paintings have as their pic- 
turesque feature, the mill dam, the mill, and the water 
wheel. The charm is not alone in the small pond of water, 
the rude mill, and water wheel but in the added mental pic- 
ture that we draw of the farmer coming with his wheat 
and corn and going home with his flour and meal. It is 
the reminder of the bygone days, the days of the sickle, 
the horse-driven threshing-machine and the grist-mill. It 
is a picture of the unbought source of energy dropped 
from the friendly clouds ready for use, a source whose use 
does not diminish the supply, an ever-renewed source of 
energy. 

The white coal is doing its useful and civilizing work. 

The Steam Engine 

There came a fortunate time when it was found that 
by splitting the water up into its vapor, and using it in 
the steam engine, a small amount of water could be made 
to do the work of a flood on the water wheel. 

It might seem that the power of the water to do work 
had been increased manyfold. But not so. The steam 
in a proper sense is not originating any work at all. It is 
merely using the work that was -done in expanding it. The 

183 



184 COAL 

coal did the work; the steam is simply the rather wasteful 
but very convenient medium through which work is done. 
If coal, therefore, is doing the work and being used up 
in doing it, and if coal is not inexhaustible, we must wel- 
come every auxiliary that can do some of the work and 
save coal. Thoughtful men are turning more again to 
''white coal" as that important auxiliary. 

Centralizing Our Energy Sources and Using ''Super 

Power'' 

The very gratifying tendency now is to centralize our 
sources of energy. There are three kinds of central en- 
ergy sources. 

(a) Plants in which the total energy is furnished by 
coal. Such a plant as that may send out its energy in 
either of two ways : first,— by burning its coal in producer 
ovens and piping gas to distant points for use, or, second, — 
by generating electricity and transmitting it to distant users. 

(b) The hydro-electric plants, in which the total en- 
ergy is furnished by water power and the output is elec- 
tricity. 

(c) A "Super Power" plant in which electricity is 
generated by water power, but steam engines are "stand- 
ing by," ready to be switched in to supplement water power 
at the peak of demand, or when water supply is low. The 
common output of the central plant is electricity. Much 
of the work in and about a mine is done by electricity. 
It is found cheaper and more convenient to buy electric 
energy. This energy may now be transmitted hundreds of 
miles. More and more hydro-electric plants are joined 
with steam "stand by" plants. 

In February, 1920, the report received from three thou- 
sand one hundred and fifty (3,150) central power plants 
showed that 39.3 per cent of the load is carried by water 
power. Though this report shows what has been done 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 185 



in recent time in centralizing power and making use of 
water power, greater things are in the plans of thought- 
ful men, 

A Plan to Centralize Power Generators in the Eastern 
Part of the United States 

The Geological Survey is asking Congress for an ap- 
propriation for making a survey and devising a plan for 
uniting all the power generators in the eastern part of 
the United States between Boston and Washington in "one 
large river of power," from which consumers, transporta- 
tion lines, and industries should be fed from a centralized 
line. The Director of the Survey says : 

We would study the possibilities of power production at the 
mouth of the coal mine, linking in with these the water powers 
that are available. 

There is a certain amount of water power that is available 
and there are some very good water powers in that area, but 
they cannot stand alone. They must be hitched up with steam 
plants. Some of these steam plants would be put in at tide 
water and some near the mines. The benefits of such a power 
oroject, which we call a ''super power," are that we make the 
best use of coal and half the coal which is used for power 
generation would be saved. The small plant that makes elec- 
tricity on a small scale has only one-third or one-fourth the 
efficiency of the big modern plant. 

Then v/e would go into application of electricity to our 
railroads. 

Electrifying a Railroad By Power from Waterfalls 

Operating Trains Over the Great Divide by 

Water Power 

The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad operates 
its trains over its lines on grades which, for steepness over 
long stretches, are not matched in the United States. 

For four hundred and forty miles, — from Harlowton, 
Montana, to Avery, Idaho,— over the Big Belt, Rocky 



186 COAL 



Mountains, and Bitter Root Range, which forms the Con- 
tinental Divide, the trains are operated by electricity gen- 
erated by waterfalls along the line. For twenty-nine miles 
of the line the grade is two per cent, for eleven miles one 
and two-thirds per cent, and for forty miles it is one per 
cent. Steam engines would have trouble drawing heavy 
trains up such grades. In normal times forty-two im- 
mense engines, weighing two hundred and eighty-four tons 
each, haul as much as thirty-two hundred tons each up a 
one per cent grade at a speed of fifteen miles an hour. 
Smaller engines haul eight hundred tons at a speed of 
sixty miles an hour. In addition to this railroad service, 
the power company has stretched a network of transmis- 
sion lines over a large part of Montana and Idaho. 

Eight Million Tons of Coal Saved by a Creek 

Among the peaks of the Sierra Mountains, there is a 
basin into which drains the water from a watershed of 
eighty-eight square miles. It is bounded on the west by 
a low ridge and on the east by the Kaiser Range, ten thou- 
sand feet in height. The moisture-laden winds from the 
Pacific Ocean sweep over the low ridge on the west of the 
basin and strike the Kaiser Range on the east, which wrings 
out the water, sending it back down into this basin, which 
is seven thousand feet above sea-level, and out of which 
runs the Big Creek on its way down to the Joaquin River. 
The hydro-electric company has at its command the enor- 
mous head of four thousand feet in this creek. Down 
Big Creek is the first power house, at a lower level of two 
thousand feet. Here are installed the most powerful im- 
pulse wheels ever built, and the largest electric generators. 
The water, flowing out of six inch nozzles with a velocity 
of three hundred and fifty feet a second or two hundred 
and forty miles an hour, strikes the buckets of the wheels 
without shock, delivering 23,500 horse power. The water 
then flows on down to a lower level of two thousand feet, 
doing work in another similar power house. Every cubic 



GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL 187 



yard of water is worth twenty pounds of coal, and all 
together this water does the work of eight ""million tons 
of coal every year. The current is transmitted over the 
largest express line in existence, and at the highest voltage 
used commercially. The line is carried over mountains and 
desert to Los Angeles, distant two hundred and forty miles. 
It uses three thousand steel towers. The plant likewise 
serves local industries. 

Hydro-electric Plant on the Mississippi River 

The hydro-electric plant at Keokuk, Iowa, makes use 
of the largest stream of water in the United States, just 
as the Big Creek plant makes use of the highest head of 
water. The conditions are favorable at that point, as 
the steep bluffs on both sides of the river confine the water 
within fixed limits, keep it from spreading over the banks, 
and make good abutments with which to join the dam 
across the river. A dam four thousand two hundred and 
seventy-eight feet long is needed from bank to bank. The 
construction of the dam and its unusual features are very 
interesting but cannot be discussed here. The dam is 
made so as to be thirty-two feet above the normal level 
of the water; and as the river has only a fall of twenty- 
three feet in twelve miles, it makes a lake forty miles long 
and three to five miles wide. The river has a water 
discharge of from twenty-one thousand to seventy thou- 
sand cubic feet per second. 

The turbines have a rated capacity of ten thousand 
horse power, with a head of thirty-two feet. The total 
capacity is two hundred thousand horse power. 

Great as is the amount of power generated here, it is 
surprising to find that it does not generate much more than 
half as much as is produced by the Big Creek. The Big 
Creek can generate three hundred and fifty thousand horse 
power, while the Mississippi plantS only generates two hun- 
dred thousand horse power. 

Before the Keokuk plant was completed, a contract had 
been made to supply St. Louis for ninety-nine years with 



188 COAL 

sixty thousand horse power. This is carried to St. Louis 
by a transmission wire one hundred and fifty-five miles 
long. (Other cities near the plant clamored for electric 
energy, which could not be furnished. It is probably that 
this plant is capable of supplanting two million tons of coal. 

The Smallest Public Hydro-Electric Plant 

The smallest public-service hydro-electric plant known 
derives its power from a torrent in the gulch in the Little 
Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Range, Utah. It was 
built by a town of four thousand inhabitants, at a cost of 
eighty thousand dollars. The power house is two miles 
from the mouth of the canyon, the water being carried to 
the power house by a thirty-inch stave pipe. The water 
has a fall of five hundred feet. The plant has two turbines 
and generators, each developing six hundred horse power. 

The cost of power to the inhabitants is very small,-- 
for lighting, at the rate of seven cents per kilowat hour; 
for cooking, two to five cents ; on large contracts, one hun- 
dred horse power a year for one hundred and fifty dollars. 

In order to show the great range of possibility of 
"white coal" as auxiliary to black coal, I have given as 
samples the extremes of hydro-electrification: 

(1) The longest and steepest railroad line. 

(2) The plant with the highest head of water. 

(3) The plant with the largest water supply, 

(4) The smallest public service plant. 



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